A gender-bender variation on “Vertigo” with a darkly hilarious double-revenge twist, Pedro Almodovar’s “The Skin I Live In” is a lurid melodrama that’s way out there even by the great Spanish director’s extravagant standards.

Antonio Banderas has a field day as a mad plastic surgeon who uses his experiments with artificial skin to re-create his late wife using an unorthodox guinea pig he keeps locked up in a room in his vast estate — played by both Elena Anya and Jan Cornet in a “Myra Breckinridge”-style casting coup.

There are also memorable performances by Marisa Paredes as a housekeeper with a secret, and Roberto Alama as a fugitive from justice who triggers a lengthy series of flashbacks and a wild series of events.

It’s a lot of fun, and should appeal to horror and sci-fi fans as well as Almodovar’s huge art-house following.