Skinamarink (2023)

Skinamarink (2023)
Directed by: Kyle Edward Ball
Written by: Kyle Edward Ball
Starring: Dali Rose Tetreault, Jaime Hill, Lucas Paul, Ross Paul

SKINAMARINK
Streaming on Shudder
Available on Blu-ray, DVD and digital on 3 July 2023

In the past year or so I’ve really taken to listening to ambient music. As pretentious as it might seem, I find that it has an almost transcendent quality to it. Each note left to extend and hang, it’s minimalist to the point that it makes you feel like every move is deliberate. It’s so slow, and most of the time so droning, that your mind is left to fill in the blanks, and to consider every note. It subconsciously engages your brain and almost forces you into a calming immersion, and it’s so subtle you don’t even realise it’s happening…

Skinamarink is the evil version of those feelings in a cinematic form.

Skinamarink is the feature length debut of director Kyle Ball. This ambient horror begins with a family home. We spend a little bit of time with the family unit, watching them interact, observing various moments of their daily lives. We’re then introduced to the main premise of the film: the two children wake up in the middle of the night and realise that their parents have gone missing. I use the term premise here very, very loosely – because while this is the sort of guiding framework of the film, this is not a plot-oriented movie by any stretch of the imagination. Even with this narrative setup, much of this film is presented in a very opaque form. So much so, you’d really be forgiven as an audience member for not even being able to derive this story from what’s being shown on screen (I’ll admit, Shudder’s plot description before the movie helped me out). From here on out, it’s anyone’s guess on how the story develops. And I say this as someone who’s just seen the film.

There’s very little to comment by the way of the performances, although, it’s difficult to pertain who’s doing what here. I count at least 4 actors – none of which are shown in real detail for any length of time beyond a few seconds. When anyone is on screen, they’re only ever shown from strange perspectives; their faces never fully shown, which really forces you to focus on who’s involved in the scene and attempt to figure out what the hell is even going on.

But the obfuscated plot and sparce performances isn’t the reason Skinamarink shines in the way it does. It wouldn’t win any awards on that front, nor would I ever want to read the screenplay. But the movie excels in creating an atmosphere and completely submerging you into it. It does this through a complete commitment to its audio and visual design. While its plot and performances bleed into this and provide a breadcrumb trail for you to try and follow, how much you get out of this film will entirely depend on how much that aesthetics grab you.

Let’s start with the visuals. Throughout the film’s runtime, we’re kept within a very strict set of shots and perspectives. VERY slow, and most of the time motionless, it almost fells like switching through a set of security cameras. We’re within the family home shifting between near static images showing odd angles of the building’s interior. Capturing the flickering of a nightlight, a spilt box of Lego, a conversation happening just off screen – but, due to the placement of the camera, we only just catch the brightness of a tv playing cartoons off to the side of them. This visual placidity is occasionally broken up staggering flashes of action, or movement. But we’re only left to our imaginations of what these moments could be. The films visuals are treated with a heavy grain, leading to a disorientating perspective as we try to see through the dark, low-fi images. We’re never given a straightforward look at what is happening within the movie visually or narratively.

While there’s no soundtrack to speak of, the film’s visuals are reinforced by its sound design. Sensorially similar to the films visual grain, there’s a constant, low hissing and cracking in the background – similar to that of a looping, finished record. The lulling consistency of it makes it feel like you’re always engaged on some level while watching. It plays with you constantly, it taunts you; it’ll turn down the crackling, playing with horror tropes, making you believe that something big is about to happen, only to bring it back and continue as normal. This teasing creates a screeching tension, putting you on a razors edge the entire time, waiting for the big scares to come. All of the dialogue in the film is presented through this blunted ASMR-style of recording. Simultaneously sounding uncomfortably, and intimately close but also very far away. Fuelling the fire of this soundscape.

Both of these approaches to the audio and visual design – of showing fragments, or seriously distorting what you’re presented with – really focuses your senses. Creating this all-encompassing atmosphere, drawing you in and immersing you. I’m sure many would agree with the sentiment ‘less is more’ when it comes to big scares in horror. The kills in something like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, feel more gruesome because we’re not shown everything in gory detail, leaving our minds to fill in the blanks. Skinamarink takes this approach and runs away with it, applying this rule over everything. I’m lulled into a transfixed state engaging with an obscured visuals and sound while my mind races with everything that’s just off screen, or into the distance and in the shadows. Instead of the zen-like experience you might get from ambient music, Skinamarink envelops you in anxiety, and just makes you sit there. All of this priming you to have the rug pulled out from underneath you for a good scare, and when the big ones come in, they REALLY get you.

Ultimately, this is some fringe shit. By no means is this a film for everyone. It’s very experimental and will leave many people coming away from it thinking it was just an hour and a half of obscured pictures of doorframes. Don’t get me wrong, they’d partially be right in saying that. But the atmosphere it creates manifested an effect on me unlike anything I’ve seen in a film before. If this sounds like your kind of thing I can’t recommend it enough, and the only way to watch this for me is with a set of headphones, in the pitch black. Settle in.

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