Skinamarink review: low-budget film delivers big-time horror
It's still early, but Kyle Edward Ball's single-location thriller might turn out to be 2023's most frightening film
Film Reviews Skinamarink
Skinamarink emerges on the 2023 horror scene having already cast a strange spell on a sizable portion of horror fandom. After making the rounds at festivals late last year, Kyle Edward Ball’s low-budget, single-location film surfaced on TikTok and elsewhere and became a viral indie sensation as users (legally or otherwise) dug into its grainy imagery, vivid use of sound, and terrifying premise. By the time 2022 rolled over into 2023, even before general audiences had the chance to see the film, it was clear that Skinamarink might be worthy of inclusion on the list of Scariest Movies Ever Made.
“Scariest” is, of course, in the eyes and ears of the moviegoer, but whether it wraps you in layers of sheer, visceral terror or simply engages a more fleeting, conceptual, horror-inclined area of your brain, it’s hard to deny that Ball’s film is scary. Beyond that, though, Skinamarink presents something experimental and often stunningly mesmeric, an unconventional take on a very conventional, near-universal fear. From shot to shot and on a grander, more existential scale, it’s a singularly nightmarish piece of horror filmmaking and one of the year’s must-see genre films.
The setup for this wonderfully strange journey plays like a version of a nightmare almost all of us had as children, whether we remember it or not. In a house that might exist in the 1980s, or might exist outside of time altogether, siblings Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault) and Kevin (Lucas Paul) wake up and discover their parents are gone and the house itself is behaving strangely. As they search each room for the presence of an adult, the children discover that all the external windows and doors of the house are disappearing one by one, replaced by solid walls adorned with useless blinds and fixtures.
With this strange paradigm shift firmly in place, accompanied by various other creepy phenomena, like toys that seem to stick to the ceiling, the film devotes much of its runtime to Kaylee and Kevin’s attempt to adjust to their isolated existence. Because they’re so young and so devoted to basic needs like bowls of cereal, cartoons, and toys, the siblings never descend into absolute panic. Instead, Skinamarink follows their dreamy blend of curiosity and fear wherever it leads, as the house gets darker and the mystery of what exactly is happening gets all the more compelling.
Any filmmaker telling this story would likely get at least some horror mileage out of its premise. But Ball is not interested in a direct and logical exploration of events. He takes the nightmare scenario of his screenplay and, with the help of cinematographer Jamie McRae, pushes things into the realm of childlike, disorienting wonder. The camera does not give us a straightforward version of events as Kaylee and Kevin scrounge for food and look for solutions to their various problems. It lingers in doorways and down halls and looks up at strange shadows thrown across ceilings. It hovers on the far side of a vast expanse of carpet while a television plays appropriately creepy cartoons and it drifts idly across fields of LEGO blocks and doll parts. It all gives the viewer the sense of being lost in something impenetrable, something forbidden, a nightmare that won’t end not just because we can’t find the end, but because there simply isn’t one.
Which isn’t to say there’s no sense of rising and falling tension throughout the film. Within this framework of palpable, oddly nostalgic dread, Ball builds his story patiently and in small but well-defined pieces. The film’s sound design is, like the visual style, often deliberately disorienting. The children speak almost entirely in whispers accompanied by subtitles. But it’s clear that they are seeking both survival and understanding within the confines of this strange and haunting home, and with those goals in place Ball starts to play with the scenario. Other parts of the house begin to behave in odd ways, manipulating the children as they lose all sense of the passage of time. And, most frighteningly, in some of the most harrowing sequences committed to film in recent memory, Ball makes it horrifyingly clear that the children are not necessarily alone. To say more would ruin the visceral power of it all, but when Skinamarink dials up the horror, it really dials it up, to the point where you might find yourself hiding behind your hands even while watching in broad daylight.
For some horror fans, this will not be enough. Skinamarink is, at its heart, firmly and gleefully experimental, and that means leaving more traditional forms of narrative arc building behind in favor of a darker, more mercurial approach. But if you’re willing to follow Ball and company down these dark corridors, into this twisted view of primal childhood fear and how easily we get lost in that fear, you’re in for an absolutely unforgettable horror experience. We have a long way to go in 2023, but Skinamarink is already a top contender for the year’s most frightening film.
(Skinamarink opens nationwide January 13)
71 Comments
For anyone else wondering where, when & how to see this since the review doesn’t tell us, IMDB has the deets:“Scheduled to hit theaters on January 13, 2023 before releasing on Shudder later in the year.”
most people know how to use google and/or check their local theater showings, your smarminess isn’t helpful
I’m other words, it’ll play 3 theaters in NY/LA and the rest of us will wait for Shudder.
Seems like the most likely scenario.
That’s what I thought, and then I checked my area (which is decidedly NOT anything approaching NYC/LA) and this movie’s actually playing at three of my local theaters – two Regals and a Cinemark – though it seems showtimes are only this Friday and Saturday night, and then it’s gone.
Ditto. It’s showing at one indie theater in New Orleans. Late night showings on Friday and Saturday and then it is no more. My ancient ass doesn’t normally do late night shows, but judging from the previews this one looks like it would be worth it.
I’m also not in NY/LA. I have some theaters that are only this weekend, but then Drafthouse has times for next week too.
I’m in Oregon, and I could see it on three screens within walking distance this weekend.
You never know. My local Alamo Drafthouse in Missouri is showing it. I already bought my tickets.
It’s in Cincinnati this Friday, which means it’s probably everywhere.
692 theaters, as it turns out.
Just saw it in Memphis (it’s a fucking masterpiece)
I thought I just read it would be on Shudder on 1/20…?
Thank you for this. Not sure why this website refuses to post useful information. Maybe they’re saving it for a “release dates slideshow”
People know how to use google to look up cinema showings
But why not? It’s not like it’s unusual. Most major publications do this . In fact, The AVclub mentions the network and air date when they review a tv show. Why should films be different?
since the review doesn’t tell usThat seems to be a common problem around here these days.
I hope it’s good, but r his movie might be on the opposite side of the internet-hype-to-delivery ration from M3gan; I saw the trailer in a screening for White Noise a few weeks back. I’d seen it, and find it a super creepy and affecting trailer, but the crowd laughed harder every time that voice said “in this house.”Got my tickets for Friday regardless!
people laugh when they’re nervous. No one would be laughing watching it just on their own.
It’s a fantastic movie if you’re on its wavelength, and a goofy never-ending bore if you’re not. I’m fully on board with it and think all the “scariest movie ever” hype has something to it (I certainly can’t remember the last time a film made me feel such bone-deep dread), but it isn’t hard to imagine someone getting absolutely nothing out of it.
after watching the trailer, i’m def not on its wavelength.
Well put; it seems like a troubling experience if you give yourself to it, or a complete nothing if you’re on the couch with your phone on your knee.When I was a kid I’d grab the supernatural/ghost/cryptid books from the library shelf and flip through to the creepiest illustrations, basically daring myself to look at creepy charcoal drawings of greys/yetis knowing full well I was spiking my ability to sleep at all that night. The trailer gives me that.In terms of bone-deep dread, my thoughts are The Thing, which has a sense of disorientation (I posit it’s deliberately impossible to track who is or isn’t a Thing) and inevitability (nobody’s escaping this outpost); and Battle Royale, which always upsets me for the relatably, highly emotional stakes of youth mixed with being suddenly faced with your own certain, violent death. I don’t know how violent or goopy Skinamarink is (leave me to find out this weekend!), but it seems like a movie which leverages something other than explicit violence and certain death.
When I was a kid I’d grab the supernatural/ghost/cryptid books from the library shelf and flip through to the creepiest illustrations, basically daring myself to look at creepy charcoal drawings of greys/yetis knowing full well I was spiking my ability to sleep at all that night. The trailer gives me that.A friend and I bonded over our shared lifelong fear of the photo of Deloys’ Ape. We now know it’s just a spider monkey, but something about seeing it and thinking it was a 6-foot jungle biped when our ages were in the single digits just had a lifelong effect.
google’s Deloy’s Ape.Ack, what the fuck? Holy fuck what the shit.clicks back to the tab with the imageYeahhhh that’s the stuff.
Fun fact: I learned researching it for a podcast that Deloys himself thought nothing of it (because he knew it was a spider monkey), and the world at large never would have learned of this cryptid if not for an acquaintance of his who found the image decades later and ran with it. That friend was a French Nazi collaborator who put on an exhibition in Vichy France about how weak and bad Jews were and how big and strong and good Nazis were.
Somehow that part never makes it into the cryptozoology books.
I “gave myself” to Heck and wish I hadn’t. One need not have the attention span of a coffee-addled hummingbird to find dull things dull.
Any reference points for what that wavelength is (without giving too much away)? I’m cautiously intrigued. The kids walking through the darkness in the trailer had me nervous, but I don’t often enjoy cryptic storytelling. Sounds like it’s more about experiencing the creepy atmosphere?
Yeah, it’s all about the atmosphere. What little plot exists is easy enough to suss out, but it’s absolutely not the focus at all.If it clicks with you, it feels like being a child spending a long night in a strange house after all the lights are out and everyone’s gone to bed, where you can’t really see anything and you don’t know where or what anything is and everything seems alien and intimidating. If you try to imagine David Lynch trying to capture that mood (and only that mood), you’re on your way there.If it doesn’t click with you, it’s an hour and a half of almost nothing happening with no characters and a lot of shots of hallways and room corners, interspersed with the occasional subtitle and jump scare out of nowhere.More than anything else, I really can’t emphasize enough that it is slow, the setup is essentially the entire plot, and when people say “there are no characters” they’re only exaggerating a tiny bit (it does have characters in the sense that humans are in the movie portrayed by actors, but that’s about the extent of it). The thing’s more of an experience than a narrative, and it’ll either strike a nerve deep down and utterly terrify you or it’ll bore the everloving Christ out of you.
Thanks! The way you describe it sounds like a really interesting concept, but there’s a high likelihood I’d fall into the latter camp that gets bored/confused. I’ll save my $15 and wait until it hits streaming (and watch it late at night with no lights on).
I really wanted to love this, but I was honestly bored. A couple of creepy moments aside, most of this is made up of long, static shots of the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the carpet, the corner, etc. I usually love weird and experimental horror, but this did not work for me at all. I think this is either going to be a love it or hate it for most people.
This isn’t about the elephant song at all, is it
I got a Sharon, Lois and Bram notification for this?
No, and it’s not about how Lois really died either.
This movie was such a god awful waste of time.
It helps if you don’t have zoomer brain and can keep your eyes off your phone for 5 minutes
I don’t have zoomer brain and really appreciate places that are hard on people using their phones (I went to an Alamo Drafthouse, which is famous for discouraging phone use.) And it was still a goddamn struggle to get through! It felt longer than ‘Babylon’ played at half-speed, and I didn’t hate it — but I can see how someone would be bored beyond belief.
One comment is enough
This movie looks like if someone decided to make a feature-length version of the The Ring video.
Oh no, the video in The Ring has way more going on in it than this movie does. Seriously.
Things actually happened in that video though.
I misread the title of the film and thought it was a documentary about the late-night offerings on Cinemax.
Weird question: does anyone know where there’s a spoiler-y synopsis of this I can read? I do that for movies that provoke my curiosity badly but I won’t be able to watch for a while for whatever reason, because it sort of scratches the itch. I read about this a few months ago and have been keeping tabs since, but it seems too obscure still to get, like, a wikipedia synopsis. I can’t watch it, I think, because I was intrigued by the premise when I heard it and watched the trailer, but had the most visceral response I’ve ever had to watching something. It’s really weird, I’m not that squeamish of a person about film and have seen a lot of heavy stuff. But I think something about having had nightmare experiences like this as a kid + the experimental technique + me now having two toddlers of these genders with nightlights of these colors is just triggering some kind of crazy protective parent impulse. Since then it’s been stuck in my head like when you need to floss. I feel like reading a synopsis of the end might make it better, just so I know what happens. Maybe I can watch it in a few years when the kids are older, because it does sound like my jam.I watched Ball’s short film Heck (even that took effort), so I know the “story” is likely to be thin and abstract. I just want to know the broad beats of what happens and how it resolves.
Fish Jelly Film Reviews on YouTube just posted a spoiler review for Skinamarink.
I’ll check it out, thanks!
FWIW, you mostly see the kids from the ankles down and the only thing you ever find out about them is their names. Their genders didn’t seem to matter, I don’t even know which kid was supposed to be older.
I don’t think there is enough plot to write a synopsis about the movie.
Hated it. It’s 90 minutes of off-angles looking at walls and door frames, child-voiced whispers so muffled the film provides its own subtitles, and the attempt to draw out a feeling of dread way past the breaking point. I can’t care that these little kids whose faces I never get to see are in oblique supernatural danger for that long. After an hour, I was groaning at the screen, “Freaking do something already.” The something never happened.
Like others have said, there’s a small stratum of people who will love this, but I expect the majority of audiences to miss the conventions of story it eschews, like character and plot.
For comparison purposes, would you put it in a similar slow burn category like The Babadook? Or is it even less eventful than that?
I’d literally say in ninety minutes there are about two-and-a-half events.
Comparing The Babadook to Skinamarink reminds me of that scene from The Simpsons where Bart gets scammed into paying a bunch for an Itchy and Scratchy animation cel, and the Comic Book Guy says, “Look: This is a Snagglepuss, drawn by Hig Heisler. It is worth something. This… this is an arm, drawn by nobody. It is worth nothing.”
If you watch it, you will learn nothing of the characters, you will have no emotional resonance to them, you literally won’t even see their faces. All you’ll get is the tension of knowing “something” is about to happen and you can’t see or hear what it is or might be, because the very cameras and microphones are deliberately not pointed at it.
The Babadook is a fiercely clever examination of a mother’s grief over losing her husband and not always liking her son, manifesting as a self-destructive guilt. It is worth something. Skinamarink is a dimly-lit house. It is worth nothing.
Roger that. Thanks for taking one for the team.
I desperately want the 45 minutes I spent watching the movie back. I gave up and read the full plot, and have no regrets.
Speaking as someone who loves the movie, this doesn’t really have a narrative. I mean, it technically does, but it’s absolutely paper-thin and isn’t what you’re here for.Skinamarink ain’t The Babadook, it’s Gus Van Sant’s Gerry. It’s Koyaasnisqatsi contained entirely in a wood-paneled home with all the music replaced with heavy static. The trailer isn’t just a stylish presentation of the movie’s general tone, it’s an honest presentation of what the movie is like minute-to-minute.This is one of those cases where all the reviews calling it “slow” and “experimental” really aren’t lying. The fact that it’s getting anything resembling a wide release is astounding, because it’s absolutely the sort of thing that usually only exists at festivals for years before finally becoming available to buy exclusively from the director’s website. Again, I love the movie and I’m happy it’s connecting with as many people as it is, but the reactions here in the comments should be enough to tell you that it ain’t just A24 slow burn.
Between feedback now from one person who hated it and one who loved it, I’ve triangulated to the opinion that this doesn’t sound like my bag.
Yeah, if your yardstick for slow and uneventful is The Babadook, run far away from this.
Someone recommended that I watch his short film Heck on YouTube to get an idea of how this movie will go.I really, REALLY hope Skinamarink has more going for it than Heck. That was a lot of nothing.
IMO, Skinamarink is just Heck with an hour and ten minutes added.
Having seen both, I can tell you that it does not. Easily the most boring film experience I have ever had.
Heck really, really upset me. It also gives away the twist in this movie.It upset me not because of any horror, but because of the abject cruelty it implies.
I tried SO hard to enjoy this. I was fully ready to embrace the creepy vibes and get myself scared, but wow this movie was not it. I hated this one and I hate that I hated it. (Also has a few of the most unearned jump scares I’ve seen in a movie)
I was really intrigued by this review and so I torrented Skinamarink last night… I couldn’t do it I got like 40 minutes in and I just had to stop. I really wanted to “get it” but my endurance for staring at low angles of a an empty house just wasn’t there. It really could have been half as long. The whole thing is just extended shots of the interior of the house for two hours.
maybe something cool happens at the very end but I just couldn’t get there.
my room mate in college was studying directing and this reminds me of the super artsy student films he made then would come home with and show us.
Congratulations on writing the first movie review on the AV Club in months if not years that is not 90% plot summary with a few comments on whether it was good or bad thrown in!
To be fair, the movie kind of forced their hand on this.
Still a welcome change.
Biggest audience react was at the THE END.I can see how this might’ve worked as a short film.
Absolutely agree…it would be one of the best 20 min horror shorts I’ve ever seen.
This is actually playing at one of my favorite movie theaters in Montreal going to check it out this week!
I was one of those sucked into a theater to see it this weekend. It’s both one of the most exhausting movies I have seen and has some of the best/creepy moments I’ve seen in a horror movie (although somewhat ruined by cheap ass jump scares). I can’t say the movie equals the sum of it’s parts, but its neither exactly successful nor a failure. I don’t see me ever spending another 90 minutes on it again (which felt as long as the minute count in ‘Babylon’), but if you’re curious to see how David Lynch would have made a student film in 2023, this is for you!
I like that the movie took a chance and did something different. It seems like an effort to capture a nightmare on film and, to that degree, it succeeds. However, nightmares are rarely frightening to the conscious mind. Skinamarink is the film equivalent of a dark ride, for better and worse; what you’re actually allowed to see is cheesy, but what your brain assumes in the darkness or, in this case, the digital film grain effect, is where the terror comes from. Aside from a few cheap jump scares, this film is less frightening than what you might see at a museum of contemporary art.
Ok. I made it about an hour in, but I quit. I like slow horror but this is . . . not that. This movie exists solely to create a specific vibe and in that it wholly succeeds. I was thoroughly creeped out and unsettled. But it’s literally just that. There is no plot, characters, acting, or even set design (most shots are just of corners of rooms-suggestions of spaces). It’s not a movie, it’s the sights and sounds you fell asleep to when you were a little kid with a fever and your parents let you stay in the living room overnight.A horror movie without appropriate vibes sucks. But a horror movie that is only vibes sucks too. It becomes a idea to be experienced, not engaged with. And that’s a passive, dull way to engage with your audience. To give them not enough material to create questions, let alone find answers. This movie does nothing to explore its thin premise or even the nature of why we find this stuff unsettling. It just shows us what we already know and says, “pretty scary, right?”