Skinamarink - Kyle Edward Ball - 2023

★★-Well, this movie was terrifying and disturbing, and extremely divisive. Pretty unique movie. You don't see any faces, really, just little legs going here and there and back. It's mostly ceiling lights, the teevee machine, an electrical outlet, interior doors, the floor, toys on the floor, so forth. All shot art-house style. Also, I hated it.

Gist is two children wake up in the middle of the night, alone, with all the windows and doors gone. They are trapped in the house with some sort of entities that want to do them harm, it seems. 

Over 12 minutes before absolutely anything happens. Just showing the house in spanning shots. Then a man makes a phone call, telling whoever is on the other end that “he fell down the stairs and hit his head.” At about the 16 minute mark, I was getting pretty bored when things finally start to happen. Patient filmmaking, or just laborious? I was trying to decide. That's when the doors, windows, and dad disappear, Lynchian style. I'd say he and David Cronenberg are obvious inspirations. 

At one point they ask why mom is crying. Right after they hear a thump upstairs, see a chair hanging from the ceiling, and decide they need to be quiet. Wondering where dad is, one asks where dad went, the other suggests that he might have went with mom, to which Kaylee responds that she doesn't want to talk about mom. From there, things start getting progressively creepier including the toilet disappearing, which is a dire situation indeed. Eventually they find dad and he tells them to look under the bed. When she looks up, dad is gone and mom stairs at the opposite wall, facing the other way on the other side of the bed. Mom tells her that her and dad love her very much, and that she needs her to close her eyes. She disappears but says, “There is someone here.” Yeah, it gets pretty terrifying from there. 

I know it's the easiest way to fuck with an audience, put a kid in danger. I am not really a kids person, but I don't like that shit. At least as to be over the top, not this sad, cruel shit. 

Shot on what looks like VHS or Hi8. The film takes place in 1995. Pretty much looks like my house back then. I think it is supposed to be a generic house that any of us could have lived in back then. Tapping into our nostalgia and emotions to fuck with us with a super creepy ending that turns the chill on us, the audience. 

I'm honestly not really sure what this film was. I saw it called “an unsettling Rorschach test.” I definitely needed a palate cleanser after. Technically solid, but what the fuck. Extremely unsettling for a film that not much happens in. Not a fan. Gave me the heebs, especially the ending, but also bored me.