Not being a night owl, I watch nearly all the films I review during day time, usually first thing in the morning after waking up. Realising that this isn't really doing horror films justice I decided to make an effort to at least watch one a week during the optimal time where it would be most effective. I had heard great things about Kyle Edward Ball's experimental horror Skinamarink, it has literally been described as 'the scariest film ever made', and so I thought that would be a great movie to watch in the dead of night. I admit I was even nervous about starting it. Sadly then, while I really do appreciate how different it was, and what it was going for, I really struggled to keep my eyes open over the course of the very long feeling hundred minute run time. Also, the synopsis which is to follow is based on a synopsis I read online after having seen the film, I didn't pick most of this up while actually watching the movie.
Set in 1995, four year old Kevin (Lucas Paul) and his six year old sister Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault) wake up in the middle of the night to discover their father (Ross Paul) is nowhere to be found. Even more alarming is the fact that all the doors and windows to the outside world have vanished. They decide to head downstairs and shelter together in front of the TV, putting on cartoons with the hope it will make the darkness less scary. It appears that there is something evil in the house with them, something that mimics the voices of their parents, and which has the ability to alter reality...
I'm giving this film a low score, and that isn't down to me not appreciating this. I had a very boring time with this, with me constantly yawning, and constantly bringing up the menu to see how much of the film was left to go. My biggest complaint is something that really sets this apart on its own, namely that the film takes place almost exclusively off camera. Instead the film focuses on walls, ceilings, close-up of carpets, while events play out unseen. The most you ever get is the sight of legs walking past the camera, and I think there are two moments where Kevin actually appears on screen in full, albeit with his back to the camera. This made for an extremely dull movie to watch, especially late at night when I was already tired.
This wouldn't have been so bad if I was able to piece the story together, but I simply didn't. I admit that until I read the synopsis afterwards I didn't even realise there were two children, I mean, at the start there are two, but I assumed one of them was an imaginary friend or something as they just vanished from the film at some early point. I read that there was less than five hundred words of dialogue in the film, with the majority of that being from public domain cartoons which essentially make up the soundtrack. There are long scenes where the camera is half on the TV in close-up, showing the admittedly creepy looking very old cartoons. Starring a four year old it makes sense there wouldn't be much dialogue, and I thought it was really novel to have a horror film where virtually the only character is a toddler. The fact that he is rarely actually glimpsed, and some confusing voice work, led to me not really caring too much about him. There was a scene for instance where he is saying he has hurt himself, but he says it in such a normal way that I assumed he was pretending he had done when I don't think that was meant to be the case. Other parts worked out better though, such as his innocence when Kevin is talking to the entity.
The film is extremely grainy, almost with a feel of it having been simulated to look like it was filmed on a Super-8 camera. I thought this post production grainy look was fantastic, and probably Skinamarink's most successful part, could even be possibly a new evolution within the found footage horror genre. It made so many scenes feel like there was more to them, with me straining my eyes trying to work out if stuff was happening in the pitch black backgrounds, or if my imagination was creating things that were not actually there. There was a sense of realism to this, but that was taken away a bit by the moments when doors and objects disappear, possibly meant to be alarming, but they just come across as amusing. Sound design was another issue, and one whose implementation was purposeful. Much of the dialogue and sound here is muffled, making lines hard to understand. Occasionally there are subtitles used to show what is actually being said, but there seemed mainly to appear when the audio was audible, there were a few times where I just couldn't make out what was being said. The horror is constant, but due to the camera angles chosen a lot of it was missed. You get objects moving around on their own, and objects stuck to the ceiling and you possibly see the entity a few times in the dark, but mostly it is more an atmosphere of dread that it is going for. There are at least a few first person perspective shots mixed in to this hellish dreamscape.
This has been lauded for making the fears of the dark for a child effectively be recreated for an adult audience. It is effective, yet for me it was a one trick pony. I spent the movie hoping that the weird camera angles would eventually lead into something where I could actually see what was going on, even if just for the end at least. As it was, the film ended and I literally had no idea what the plot had actually been, reading about it afterwards it did sound like it could have been scary if that plot had been better presented to the viewer. I however missed a good two thirds of the story, and so potentially chilling story beats were completely lost on me. I am very glad I decided to give this a shot, I think this may even be a work of art, yet for me personally I just didn't think it was that interesting a movie outside of its extremely well implemented idea. Skinamarink can currently be streamed on Shudder.
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