Horror Movie Review: Skinamarink (2022)

Minimalist horror Skinamarink comes from director Kyle Edward Ball, who also wrote the screenplay, with the full-length idea coming from his short, Heck.

Telling a story about two young children who wake up in the night to discover that their father is gone, and that the windows, doors, and other objects in their house are disappearing. It’s every child’s nightmare, which is exactly how the film plays out. Dealing in childhood fears and nightmares in highly experimental fashion.

For 100 minutes, Ball assaults your senses with sounds and images while also testing your patience. Skinamarink can be extremely unnerving, but it can also be dull, pretentious, frustrating, and anger-inducing. Unfortunately, it’s the latter feelings that dominate the watching experience.

The unnerving elements come from the strong sense of disorientation and malevolent evil that hangs in the air thickly. Like the children involved, the viewer can never fully understand just what is occurring. Except that it is something to be afraid of. If this was amplified and built upon with some sense of coherency, Skinamarink would be far more impressive.

Instead, Skinamarink plays the same hand repeatedly, to the point of being nearly unwatchable.

It’s such a shame as the buzz surrounding it and the knowledge that it was experimental horror was enough to create anticipation. There are few new ideas in horror, so anything that breaks the mould is well worth checking out. Skinamarink succeeds at breaking the mould but is such a let-down overall.

As Skinamarink’s excruciatingly long runtime plays out, the same tricks and tropes are played out to frustrating levels. Every single shot is too long, every single sequence drags on, every single development is extended to the point of boredom. All playing out in a lo-fi, shot-on-film look that makes it all feel even more pretentious.

It’s clear that Ball needed someone to tell him when enough was enough and that wasn’t the case here.

There’s nothing wrong with abstract storytelling and ‘make up your own mind’ developments. Skinamarink goes too far with that though and will likely leave most feeling baffled by what they saw. Leaving the horror up to the imagination is fine, as nothing can be shown that will ever be as scary as what a person can imagine. However, the horror that Skinamarink wants you to feel is harder to connect to when its such a dull and tedious experience.

It’s going to polarise. There will be likely be as many who think this is a work of art as those who think it’s a waste of time. Regardless, its attempt at minimalist experimental and abrasive horror is daring.