Skinamarink is a film directed by someone who’s essentially a YouTuber, Kyle Edward Ball. Ball makes what you could call experimental horror movies, and this was his first feature. It’s based on some of his YouTube shorts, especially one from 2020 called Heck. That short acted as his proof of concept to raise funding.
The film caused a bit of a sensation earlier this year because of its incredibly low $15,000 budget, and then grossed a cool $2 million. It was released theatrically via IFC Films at a time when much bigger films don’t get a theatrical release, mainly because of it being a horror movie which under covid and post-covid has been one of the few genres to turn a profit theatrically. A two-night run was extended for some time, making for a good result for the distributor.
The film itself is vaguely about two kids in the 1990s who wake up in the middle of the night. They find that their father is missing, and all the windows and doors of their house are missing. It has an atmosphere rather than an actual plot. So there are lots of shots of walls, and footage grained up to look older than it is, all obviously shot digitally. Shots of carpet and lights try to make the whole experience unsettling. Most of the dialogue is through subtitles because it’s so quiet.
Skinamarink has a found-footage feel to it, and is seen through the kids’ eyes. There are lots of clips from public-domain cartoons that probably wouldn’t have even been on TV in the ’90s, I was there and the age of the kids! It definitely falls into the category of “slow cinema”—in fact it’s one of the slowest films I’ve ever seen. It’s trying to be dreamlike but… it’s not. Dreams aren’t that boring!
Ball’s main influences are filmmakers like Chantal Akerman (Jeanne Dielman), Stan Brakhage and Maya Deren—and of course David Lynch. I can see the slow cinema connection, but there’s nothing Lynchian about it, although maybe there’s some similarities with a few of Lynch’s experimental shorts. Lynch is far more narrative-driven than he is given credit for, but this is like staring at static for 100 with a minimal things happening. It mainly seems like he went through After Effects to try to make his crappy footage look cool.
All power to Ball that it got a theatrical release and made $2 mil—that’s pretty astonishing. But it’s not scary, and it’s very boring. Maybe if you were locked into a cinema and it was like a Clockwork Orange situation, it might work on you. I get that it’s trying to show the fear and anxiety of a neglectful childhood, but it did nothing for me. Some viewers will dig it, apparently, it really freaks out Zoomers, as did We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, another creepypasta-flavored film. That probably explains why the film was a big sensation on TikTok and has been widely bootlegged.
I respect that it was successful, but I need a plot in a horror movie generally. So while I don’t think Ball is untalented, this one feels substance-free. The Blu-Ray comes with a commentary by writer/director/editor Ball and cinematographer Jamie McRae.
½
Ian Schultz
psychotroniccinema.com 