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Skinamarink is an incredibly unique and enjoyable experience that is worth seeing at least once.

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There’s a special kind of terror that a child’s mind can create when half asleep. I have distinct memories of wandering my childhood home in a state between dreaming and being awake. During this state, my mind would create this otherworldly mirror of my home where I felt both safe and afraid and where a strange soundscape pierced my ears. I was reminded of this feeling thanks to the feature debut of Kyle Edward Ball Skinamarink, a polarising film that has been both applauded and decried for its unique vision. 

Like Watching A Home Video

The opening minutes of this film feel like a snapshot of childhood memories, quiet hallways late at night, the glow of a TV left on long after everyone has fallen asleep and the typical creeks and groans of a house at night. There is a sense of nostalgic comfort in this simpler time of life however this comfort is what the film uses to make its sinister events even more harrowing. It rips that comfort away from you and makes this warm home a prison. The grainy nature of the film’s cinematography gives a very home video/ early 90s surveillance footage vibe and adds to this aesthetic that is both familiar and uncanny. 

The initial moments of the film serve more to familiarise us with the setting and give us a sense of space in the house where we spend the entire film. The use of this space is incredible and immediately puts the viewer off kilter with one of our protagonists wandering the halls of the house. We are briefly given a snapshot of one of the parents of the two children who we spend the film with, serving more to lay breadcrumbs for people to theorise about rather than flesh out the non-existent characters. 

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The use of this space is incredible and immediately puts the viewer off kilter with one of our protagonists wandering the halls of the house.

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More Tension Than Scares

The selling point of Skinamarink and why I really enjoyed it is the slow drip feeding of horror that the film gives. There are less than a handful of jump scares in the film as the film attempts to bring you to a place of discomfort and fear and then holds you there for the entire runtime never giving you room to breathe. The film has fantastic sound design that uses the familiar sounds of a family home settling at night against you by adding haunting voices and sounds that could only come from the mind of a child. 

The visual style of the film also helps it feel so much more grounded with the VHS quality alongside the 1990s period setting adding to the authenticity of the whole production while also heightening the nightmarish quality of the film. For me, Skinamarink is fun for the same reasons that I enjoy the liminal space horror of something like The Backrooms, where everyday locations become anxiety-inducing nightmares.

Long In The Tooth

The number one problem this film has and the reason I will not be rushing to see it again is the length, Ball has a background in short films, and his feature debut long outstays its welcome which I think holds back the film’s rewatch value as at times it feels like a slog. However, shortening the film I feel would also compromise its unnerving impact.  

For some Skinamarink‘s glacial pacing will be off-putting as overall little happens in this film. There is no real plot to speak of as we are simply in this family home watching these two children be terrorised with no motive given nor any characterisation given to the two characters. I myself found these aren’t really problems with the Skinamarink because it’s so focused on scaring the hell out of you and playing on childhood fears in such a successful manner that we rarely see in modern horror. 

Overall Skinamarink is an incredibly unique and enjoyable experience that is worth seeing at least once. Fans of liminal space horror settings like The Backrooms and more found footage films like Paranormal Activity will enjoy this, for everyone else however it’s a coin flip as to whether Skinamarink will keep you awake at night or put you to sleep.

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