In the two-episode docuseries Skin Hunters, now streaming on Max, investigative journalists describe the awful scheme their reporting uncovered: paramedics selling the bodies of the recently dead to competing funeral home directors, and even killing patients to make money even faster. This was in the early 2000s in Łódź, a city in central Poland – victims of the scheme number in the hundreds, and the cases continue to wind their way through the Polish court system. Skin Hunters interviews journalists, whistleblowers, participants, and family members of the victims; the docuseries even has access to courtroom footage from the trial of one of the accused, where a judge calls him “an agent of darkness, dressed as a paramedic.”
Opening Shot: We hear a man’s voice over a snapshot camera effect that captures images of the rainy city center in Łódź. “I think this is a story about man being capable of doing the worst things.”
The Gist: Skin Hunters begins by interviewing two of the journalists who first broke the story. In 2002, reporting from Tomasz Patora and Marcin Stelmasiak linked paramedics and doctors in Łódź with the city’s network of funeral homes, which would pay first responders to have prized first access to bodies in need of burial. Even worse, the funeral companies would pass on the cost of those bribes to the consumer, i.e. the victims’ families. But even worse than that – and alongside this developing awfulness grows the claustrophobic quality of Skin Hunters itself – some paramedics became straight-up murderers, using a powerful drug known as Pavulon to facilitate patient death and collect even more profit.
In addition to journalists like Patora and Stelmasiak, Skin Hunters also speaks with whistleblowers, like a doctor who left his position at a state hospital rather than be a part of the “skin trade” payoffs, a system that over time was being practiced on an industrial scale. But its sheer scope also means that in an interview, a funeral parlor owner can readily, almost shamelessly admit his participation. His excuse? Everybody was doing it, and it was often the only way to get by.
The way Skin Hunters tells this terrible story isn’t necessarily linear. It features courtroom footage of paramedic murder trials without dates or names, presents archival interviews with a major player in the scheme, but without a whole lot of context, and obscures the face and voice of a middleman type who helped orchestrate payments, which seems to give him a license to brag. Unlike some corners of the true crime universe, Hunters doesn’t seem super interested in establishing a trail of accountability. Rather, it wants to explore what conditions could make people conduct themselves with this much disrespect for human life.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The 2008 documentary Necrobusiness also covered the bodies-for-bribes scandal in Łódź. And the story of fraudster doctor Paolo Macchiarini told in the Netflix docuseries Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife was dramatized in season 2 of Peacock’s Dr. Death. (Season 1 of that series starred Joshua Jackson, Doctor Odyssey himself, as a different Dr. Death.)
Our Take: The way Skin Hunters leads with its footage and images, but doesn’t necessarily define or denote what is being depicted, is definitely a choice. Often, this left us wanting to read an objective news report of the Łódź “skin trade” scandal alongside watching the docuseries, just so we could follow the facts. But at the same time, the aesthetic choices Hunters makes are also effective to build its oppressive mood. With the startling, even sinister nature of its subject, the off-narrative beats grow into a kind of gloomy noir rhythm, especially when paired with starkly animated elements that present their own emotionally bleak perspective.
“These people had no scruples, and money was the only motivator. And the money was lying on the street.” While the footage from the Polish court system in Skin Hunters is interesting – former paramedics stone-faced as their crimes are read back to them, almost as if the legal system can’t believe it – how the docuseries tries to understand the escalation of these crimes is what really has us hooked. That what began as superficially illegal – playing preferences and preying on grieving people – became an enclosed financial system with death as its exclusive commodity. When a paramedic-turned-financial go-between describes his work – “later, it turned out someone outstripped me and was better” – it’s like he could be referring to anything from widgets to crypto. But what he’s so casually talking about is lining his pocketbook with the lives of people.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: “That widespread skin trade, on a mass scale, created a system that enabled those with killer instincts.” The second part of Skin Hunters will examine how, as the “skin trade” in Łódź grew more entrenched, it began to infect multiple industries at once. More people getting paid meant even more opportunities for violence.
Sleeper Star: The animated sequences in Skin Hunters are very well done, tying together all of the grim interviews and news footage with moody visuals in red and black and the emotional story of a lonely elderly man, watched over by the ravens, who could become another victim.
Most PIlot-y Line: “Someone was killing people, to have deaths to sell.” Skin Hunters reveals even worse levels of already terrible behavior when it describes paramedics actually murdering their patients for profit.
Our Call: Stream It. As it explores its truly awful premise – a system people trusted for help that was instead devoted to harm – Skin Hunters strikes a noir-ish vibe that bends its true crime tale wit the elements of a violent thriller.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.