Skinamarink

Review

I’ve been officially Skinamarinked and damn it was fucking scary. Skinamarink is a indie experimental horror film which was made on the tiniest budget known to man and managed to somehow do the impossible task of gaining the internet’s interest. I found interest in this film by seeing people rave about it on tumblr, generally I trust tumblr’s overall recommendations since we’re all a bunch of freaks so generally interests align to a certain extent and the stuff I was seeing looked pretty cool.

Skinamarink is a movie about two kids who get trapped in their house after both of their parents disappear. They lean on each other for comfort and to try and ignore the strange things going on but the demon which haunts the house won’t let them and tortures them, especially Kevin, as much and for as long as it possibly can. It’s a simple premise but it’s executed very well.

This movie is scary, end of sentence. It’s probably the scariest horror movie on my list, which is kind of crazy. This movie understands horror, I feel like I say that a lot but this movie is a masterclass in suspense and making the audience distrustful, it’s done absolutely expertly. The phone jumpscare quite literally activated my fight or flight and I’m really glad that I didn’t end up watching it in the pitch dark like I planned because holy shit, I might have actually screamed. The craziest part is I totally expected it, in my head I was like “It’s going to look at you, it’s eyes are going to move” and yet it still got me good like oh my god. The moment that jumpscare happened I stayed completely on edge for the rest of the film and I can’t imagine how horrifying this film must be if you get so scared close to the beginning. I think this movie and the way it’s filmed makes it really good at keeping you in a heightened state of fear so its effectiveness hinges on the various jumpscares’ ability to get you there in the first place.

For the most part I really appreciated the way that this film was shot. It lends itself to some really cool shots and the further into the movie you get, the harder it is to tell what’s going on so its almost like you’re going insane with the house (how HOL-core, lol). The way it’s filmed also adds an air of unpredictability because you never know if the shot will cut away, if something will happen, or how long it will take for either of those things to happen. This is what makes the movie so good at keeping viewers in a frightened state.

Another highlight was the sound design. It was so cool and so good and so ridiculously scary that I just needed to mention it. Silence to the scores behind cartoons, to high-pitched screams/whines, to children’s voices. Its all so unnerving and it works ridiculously well.

However, there’s a reason this movie is rated 5/10 and that’s because it’s just so slow. Until one of the jumpscares finally hits you are just kind of watching nothing happen and are vibing for how ever long it takes to actually get scared. I think a lot of people liken it to the almost liminal feeling you have as a kid walking around the house in the middle of the night but I just don’t think I have the attention span for this movie and with it being a vibes movie I really resisted the urge to multitask because then the impactful parts wouldn’t hit as hard but man I really got fatigued by the movie after about 40 minutes, and I even skipped the first 15 minutes after my first watch and I still felt like it was dragging.

When I first heard about Skinamarink I thought it was an analog horror web series, similar to the Walten Files, and after watching the film I personally think it would be better suited for that format since it could be shorter but that’s just my opinion.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie but I really don’t see myself watching this movie again unless it’s with someone else who hasn’t seen it because part of what makes it hard to watch is how many silent corners you have to get through to get to the next cool shot or scary part.