I had conflicting opinions about Kyle Edward Ball's debut feature length experimental horror Skinamarink. While I thought it was excellently made, I also thought it was a very dull movie. When writing my review I discovered that the film was actually heavily inspired by an earlier short film, the near half hour Heck. With the long run time being on of my issues with the longer movie, I figured that maybe this shorter one would be more enjoyable.
Following pretty much the same plot outline as the full length movie, Heck sees a young child (Jeffty Ellison) wake up in the middle of the night to discover his mother (Courtney McNeilly) has vanished. He also quickly discovers that not only do none of the lights in the house work anymore, but that he is trapped inside, unable to open the front door, or indeed even contact the outside world in any way. As the days spiral past, it starts to appear that there may well be no end to his situation.
It's near impossible to review this movie without drawing comparisons with Skinamarink, as rather than feel like individual films, it feels like Heck is basically the template which was drawn upon to create the later. This one may be shorter, but it is also a lot more basic and rougher in design than what was to come. The child here appears to be older as there is a lot more dialogue from him, specifically referencing his thoughts more than the near silent child of the other one. The plot is basically the same, though here there is no hint towards a malevolent entity, instead the child character appears to be completely and utterly alone in the perpetually dark house.
The format is similar, with many ideas that are copied over wholesale. The TV showing old and slightly creepy looking public domain cartoons is in full effect here, making up the soundtrack for much of the run time. The film has a distorted sound to much of the dialogue, with the child's voice always showing up as subtitles on the screen, and a heavy sound of static over every shot. Where the full length film's camera work is mostly focussed on static shots, with the occasional first person viewpoint, here, the opposite is true, with the view mostly from the first person perspective of the torch carrying child. I don't know what I would have thought if I had watched this first, but to me now it felt like a proof of concept video, a rough taste of the far more polished film that was to come later down the line.
While I had my issues with Skinamarink I couldn't deny how excellently created it was. Heck is noticeably less well polished, which is to be expected. The plot here seemed a more well explained, which actually works against it at times, the title cards that kept popping up to show the passage of time for instance felt a bit goofy, and the story didn't ask too much of the viewer. Basically the exact opposite problem I had before. As much as Skinamarink bored me, it really made me think lots about it for a long time afterwards, and its atmosphere was excellent. The rougher, smaller brother Heck I don't think is going to leave as much of an impression, but at the least it is interesting to see where the genesis for that film came from. Heck can currently be viewed on YouTube.
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