Skinamarink (2022): What Scares You?

Skinamarink is one of those horror films which, when described on paper, may not seem like a film that would scare a lot of people. For many, it simply doesn't, and yet it's the scariest thing many others have ever seen.

The film, independently made by Kyle Edward Ball, is so experimental and oblique in most of its storytelling and cinematography that it loses about half the audience who watches it. Images, if I used them on this blog, would be removed from the immersive awful no-no place the film can sink you into, so they'd probably not convey scare factor well. Even text describing the events of the film, which can be heavy and distressing, would still be insufficient. 

Right off the bat, I'm going to say that I am one of the (lucky?) people who was reduced to a nervous puddle cowering behind his fingers by this movie. I have never felt real flight-response fear like that for any other horror film. So it's interesting to explore how that happened to me when no horror film has ever made me feel a sustained anxious physical panic like that before...and why the film doesn't do squat for many others. What makes Skinamarink so diametrically polarizing between "shrivels your lungs and makes you want to leave the planet" and "bores and confuses you"?

[Content warnings for this film and my review: bleak themes of children in distress, abusive treatment/coercion, offscreen but horrific injury, bloody imagery]

The common consensus for Skinamarink is that if you want it to work on you, you have to work on it. The film lives on the total dedication in your attention because it is filmed in a minimalist style that engenders either total immersion as you grasp onto anything the film provides, or conversely, total detachment because you don't feel like you're watching a story. 

I will say firsthand as someone who was shaken to my goddamn core by my viewing experience that yes, the recommended viewing for this film is to be alone in your house at night with minimal light. On your laptop with headphones might be the ideal setup; it certainly sucked me into the hell of this film. 

So what is this film, first of all?

On paper, Skinamarink is a surreal nightmare steeped in childhood fears. Heartbreakingly young siblings Kaylee and Kevin wake up one night to find their dad is missing and so are all the doors and windows to the outside of their house. In the darkness, they try to carry out a normal-esque daily routine within their understanding after their attempts to dial 911 fail, and they play and watch an old cartoon tape on the television. Later, toys start to be lifted to the walls and ceiling and the toilet vanishes...and an entity starts to speak to the kids, asking them to play its games. The entity conjures visions of the parents to Kaylee, in a scene implying the parents separated, possibly due to one being abusive, and then Kaylee's face is erased and she disappears while Kevin is left at the mercy of the entity, who continues to take away the toys, compels Kevin to harm himself, and warps the space of the house for untold eternities. 

Just from that, the film is already bleak and upsetting. Following two kids who are too young to comprehend the nightmare they're trapped in is so uncomfortable and sad, and the possible allegory for child abuse is easy to pick up on--the entity lords over the kids with commands and the ability to take luxuries and comforts away,  and asks them to harm themselves, and the mother's avatar seems to turn into a monster (though the dad might be abusive if he's lying about Kevin falling down the stairs at the start of the film). It's also been posited that the film represents a coma dream in Kevin's mind after the fall down the stairs, though I prefer to view it as allegorically supernatural rather than surrealism driven by head trauma. The story isn't fun to think about in any direction, though. The imagery is also striking in its startles and surrealism and some things are unforgettable. But it's the filmmaking itself that made me shrink so hard I could have imploded into a single atom.

Skinamarink isn't quite a found-footage film, nor is it quite analog horror. While the film looks like it's shot on an old camcorder, its shots aren't meant to be diegetic camera recordings. We're not literally watching someone's footage, and there are no cliché footage-corruption scare moments as a result. However, the film seems to deliberately evoke the verisimilitude of found-footage to create a sense of dread and immersion in its minimalism. Through strange overly-high and overly-low camera angles, long takes with little happening, and filming that consciously minimizes the onscreen depiction of the kids, the movie feels experimental and abstract, and its shots would be easy to see in a loftier arthouse film, but the camcorder look and domestic setting anchor the film in familiarity, such that the weird aspects make things more tense. In a strange way, the film style works much like the malicious entity within it--the film deprives as much of traditional filmmaking as it can from the audience so the audience will latch onto everything more fiercely and get more scared--much like the entity seems to deprive everything from the kids so it will be the most important thing to them. It works, though. With so little to direct your attention to onscreen, you focus much harder. Minimalist jumpscares which would be considered cheap moves to laugh off in a more active film were devastating jolts that stuck with me for minutes after in this film, and the scenes of tension here made me feel sick with anxiety because everything felt so real and the film drew me in too far by giving me so little. 

There are two scenes that people seem to highlight as the most dread-inducing and hard to watch without freaking out. I find that people are correct; they're terrifying. 

The first scene is where the entity calls Kaylee upstairs, and she enters her parents' room. Her father, who has been missing since the supernatural events started, is sitting at the edge of the bed, not looking at her. Already, this is extremely sketchy and tense because the audience gets the feeling that is not her father and she is not safe being there with this figure. It's similar to the scene where Danny Torrance goes to retrieve his toy truck in The Shining--a sense of total danger from the parental figure on the bed. Then, dear god, the entity tells Kaylee to look under the bed. This segment is filmed in handheld to replicate her POV, so we're stuck with the camera as she peers under the bed into the total blackness below and I wanted to die watching this, like holy shit what's under there you've already given me a heart attack earlier I don't want to see this-

But there's nothing. And when she rises, Kaylee sees her mother, seated on the other side of the bed, looking away. "Dad" is gone. "Mom" talks about loving her very much (in dialogue that sounds like the divorce talk) and tells her to look under the bed again-

oh my god screw you movie I'm going to disintegrate

When I tell you I genuinely truly panicked during this part--I've never ever felt that way during a horror scene. I've never felt so physically uncomfortable from a movie, and never had to literally watch a film between my fingers. 

The next scene that messed me up was the final shot. After eternities of torment, Kevin sees a very blurred face in the near distance, with the camcorder static making it hard to make out anything except that this is a humanoid face--something we've rarely ever seen in this film, and which now feels extremely threatening. Neither Kevin nor the audience has seen a person's face in such a long time, but now, it's not exactly welcome that we do. Kevin asks the face (presumably the entity) who it is, and the camera keeps on that awful shot and bucko you better believe the fingers are back in front of my eyes get this damn thing off the screen so help me-

And you know the funny thing here? These scenes both gave me such a horrible reaction and guess how they pay off?

They don't! Nothing jumps out under the bed. Nothing changes about the final shot of the creepy face. It's unresolved tension in a terrible way. The film brings jumpscares out of nowhere to unsettle you, and then the tense scenes don't end with any release! It's hell! And gosh, it's brilliant.

And yet it's so easy to see how that approach to horror would be fundamentally broken for many viewers. Tense scenes with no payoff? Okay, then why feel tense at all? Jumpscares out of nowhere? Okay, those are just cheap tactics. Skinamarink could easily be exactly how not to make a horror movie and fail to be effective for many because it breaks the rules that way. Coupled with its minimalist style demanding a lot of focus and willful immersion, it's easy to see why the film doesn't do anything for people. And certainly, I can agree that the film feels a little too long. While there were long stretches of tension, it was pretty easy to tell when the film had gotten "safe" and tensionless again afterward, and those periods of no tension and no scares did feel too long to me. A film like this shouldn't have extended periods where the viewer is certain nothing is going to happen, where the tension has very obviously let up for a pretty significant stretch. 

I guess it's interesting to think about stylistic barriers to immersion as a whole. While part of me reflexively wants to get judgy and say "why would you watch this if you're not going to give yourself to its style"...that's not fair. I've encountered several works where the style felt too oblique or artsy or experimental for me to engage with it and feel it. Mostly, it's with written works where it's either older text that feels too verbose, or modern text that's too avant-garde for me, but I've seen a few films where I felt like the style or content was just too inaccessible or weird to feel effective and pointed. Skinamarink isn't necessarily too shocking or grotesque to be accessible to horror viewers, but its film style is so defiant of typical narrative and cinematography that I can see why people would see it as an assignment to engage with it or be too struck by its departures to fully immerse, whereupon the style of the film can come across as breaking the rules and ineffective. I'm fully aware I might be treating works unfairly when I decide I can't engage with them due to their style. But I do feel that way about them and I can't say I'm fully wrong to. If Kyle Edward Ball didn't make his film work for you, that's fine. Just know that those people saying it's absolutely terrifying probably aren't hyperbolic. I've never felt pure fear like I did while watching this film. That's my completely honest reaction. For those who get into it, Skinamarink will suffocate you. So, you know. If you have masochistic curiosity, have a twisted love for things that freak you out like I do, or find your life a little too safe...try it out. It's amazing how little it can take to conjure terror.

[And if you've watched the film, feel wrecked, and need a palate cleanser...take a look at this parody video that's been going around.

Hopefully that makes it better!]