SKINAMARINK: Terror in the "Film" Grain

 

A lo-fi experimental horror treat is now available to watch in the comfort of your own home.

By: Josh McCormack

I don't get scared by horror movies anymore.

Perhaps it's a symptom of seeing so many, but even the most inventive and well-crafted recent films of the genre don't really get under my skin as much as they used to. Sure, I jump every once in a while when some creature leaps in front of the screen and I can get surprised by the detours that a certain horror film's narrative takes, but I'm very rarely leaving the theater with any sense of great dread. That's not to say I don't still love horror (If I had to choose, I guess I would say it's my favorite genre), but I appreciate it more stylistically.

All that said,  I just watched a horror movie that scared me.

For the first time since 2018's Hereditary, I was genuinely frightened to get through an entire movie and actually contemplated turning the movie off at one point due to just how uneasy it made me. And the funniest thing about it; practically nothing happens for 95% of the film I just watched.

The film I'm speaking of is Kyle Edward Ball's feature film debut, Skinamarink. A divisive low-budget, experimental horror movie that has been the talk of the town amongst cult film enthusiasts and the psychopaths who inhabit "Film Twitter" (*shuddering*). The very loose plot of Skinamarink focuses on two young children who wake up in the middle of the night to find out that their father is missing and that all of the windows and doors from their house have somehow vanished. Over the course of the 100-minute runtime, the two children (whose faces we never see) become the objects of a supernatural creature's torment. 

Like many effective horror movies, the basic plot is often buoyed by a distinct vision behind the camera and this is where Skinamarink shines. As alluded to earlier, the film chooses not to show the faces of our lead characters, or any human faces for that matter. Skinamarink is primarily a series of static shots of walls, ceilings, and pieces of furniture. The odd human figure does appear in Skinamarink, however it is always with their backs turned or with the camera pointed directly at their feet as to not show the audience the identifiable facial features. To the reader, this might sound incredibly frustrating or even boring. In fact, the film's detractors--of which there are many--point to this lack of human connection and lingering visual focus on the odds and ends of the everyday home to be the movie's greatest detriment. For me, however, this lack of focus on any given set of characters terrifies in a way that completely subverts any classic "rules" of making a good horror movie. It is often said that to have a good horror film or, more specifically, a good haunting movie that you have to really make sure the audience cares for the characters before you begin putting them through the wringer. Skinamarink throws this completely out the window, looking at relatable characters almost as a sort of tension-draining crutch previous films have relied on. With our lead characters being practically nothing more than disembodied voices that speak sporadically through the movie, director Kyle Edward Ball gives us no real safety net, essentially inviting the viewers to inhabit these undefined characters. This is achieved through the use of a camera that switches from objective to subjective at the drop of a dime and there are certain points we never really know if we're taking the point of view of a non-participatory camera, one of the main children, or some other malevolent force.

And the ways in which that malevolent force are portrayed (or not portrayed) within the film is where the real terror lies. Ball and his creative team made the choice to amp the movie's simulated "film" grain to just about the highest point, so that the grain seems to be swimming within the frame at all times. There is so much grain that the effect winds up playing tricks on the viewer. For example, when the camera is statically focused on a doorway with nothing but darkness behind it, that darkness is never empty. For that swirling film grain constantly tricked me into thinking that there was a being moving ever so slightly in the darkness or that I could swear I saw a hand or a foot or maybe even a face. It's the ultimate example of a film visually playing tricks on you and while it might do nothing for some, it kept me on edge and I sincerely believe that there were moments in which what I saw was really there and other times when it was all just the combination of the way the grain formed in a random cluster to make me think there was something. The use of the grain throughout the film also coalesces into one of the best stylistic payoffs I've seen in a recent movie. I won't dare spoil how, but let me just say the final shot of Skinamarink is one of the best examples of manipulating the cinematic form in order to elicit scares that I've ever seen.

The love/hate response that Skinamarink has elicited is completely warranted, if I'm being honest. We often talk about comedy being subjective, but I also believe that what we find scary can tend to be subjective, too. Especially when watching a horror film not as traditionally disciplined in the horror genre trademarks as this one. For some, Skinamarink might merely be three or four mediocre jump scares embedded within 95 minutes of staring at walls. And I can't blame anyone for having that criticism, as it's not entirely untrue. However, if it's what you don't see that frightens you and if those moments between the scare fill you with such a great unease, then you might find Skinamarink to be a lo-fi masterpiece in experimental horror.

 Like The Blair Witch Project before it, you're either all in on this unorthodox packaging of scares or you're not. I'm all in and absolutely terrified.