We all had that fear as a kid that terrified us right?

Spiders? Heights? The dark?

Skinamarink plays up to not one but two childhood fears that we all had growing up.

The dark and the fear of our parents disappearing and not being there, and boy… does it do it well.

Now straight away I’m going to level with you guys here, if you are looking for a fast paced quick moving horror movie, stop… Skinamarink is a slow burner but it’s one you really have to stick with.

The pay off is worth it, so it’s definitely worth sticking with, as it plays on these fears so very well, and it’s really terrifying.

We all know the fear of the unknown right? The feeling that something may or may not be lurking in the dark abyss that is your bedroom, I get it sometimes… when I wake up in the middle of the night, and I stare down the stairs, it looks like a dark abyss where at some point something or someone is going to pull me down.

We have all been there.

But Skinamarink doesn’t do that with adults no… instead thrown in to the mix are two siblings, a brother and a sister named Kevin and Kaylee.

Their house is haunted by something or… someone.

Someone that makes objects float on the ceiling, and whispers to them to come upstairs and look under the bed.

Now sure I do have some *minor* issues with this movie.

One being the cinematography.

Seriously who turned the grain up, the lighting I completely understand where they were going with it, but sometimes it’s so hard to make out just exactly what it is you are looking at.

You definitely need to watch this in a dark room, you watch this in the daytime you are not going to see shit.

The grain is so bad, it’s so bad on the eyes, as I said with the lighting the grain is turned all the way up, making it hard to make out what it is you are looking at.

Whether or not that was the directors intention to further play on the fear of the unknown… it certainly worked, because half the time I was saying to myself “what! What is it! What are you seeing!”

Now of course the critics loved this movie! The audience…. Eh…. Not so much.

But!

The theories that have come out of this movie are fantastic, honestly they are well worth a read, Den Of Geek compiled a list of some of them, I want to talk about my personal favourite theory, and quite possibly the most the plausible one.

Kevin is in a coma:

From the start of the film we hear Kevin fall down the stairs and bang his head, supposedly after a bout of sleepwalking, the rest of the film is literally him and Kaylee trapped in their house, no parents just rather creepy cartoons playing.

Windows and doors go missing, the toilet even goes missing believe it or not, but the editing is so well done, the only way I can describe it is when you have an image on your computer, and then you quickly delete it, undo it and then quickly delete it again.

There are some heartfelt moments in this and there were times where… a tear was shed.

The kid who plays Kevin is rather adorable, he has that typical four year old voice… you know the one where they can’t pronounce the R sound yeah that voice, throughout the film your like “Awww”!

The kid who plays Kaylee as well is great, she’s plays the part of the caring older sister really well, albeit she is in it for 25/30 minutes, now that jumpscare however oooh boy, scared the crap out of me.

Basically Kevin goes upstairs after Kaylee goes missing, he comes across her and we only get to see the bottom half of her, you only see her feet and you hear some heavy breathing coming from Kevin, and then the camera pans up to Kaylee who has no eyes and no mouth.

That scene! Well played mr director, well played… that moment in the film is where I was leaning in for a closer look, and then BAM! Kaylee’s face is revealed.

It is certainly a very effective jump scare.

The amount of tension in this film is brilliant as well, there is this one scene where Kaylee thinks she sees her mum sitting on her bed, and the muffled voice says to her to “look under the bed”

Let me tell you my heart was racing.

Skinamarink is one of those experimental films that you either *get* or don’t get, I can totally understand why people would dislike this movie, it’s definitely not for everyone.

You can tell it starts by going down this road, but midway through the film it’s like it goes “hey you know what let’s make a left turn here and completely deviate off of the path we were on” and that shows in a sense, like it doesn’t offer closure to the fate of Kevin’s character.

All we know is he’s trapped in this purgatory hellhole that’s tormenting him every which way, that’s it… we don’t know if he makes it out, we don’t know if the dad comes back.

We just don’t know.

Now there is another plot hole here.

The mum.

You hear Kevin say to Kaylee, “maybe dad is with mum” to which Kaylee replies “I don’t want to talk about mum” and that’s it.

That’s all you hear about, nothing more is said, nothing else is mentioned… that well it didn’t annoy me as such it’s just, I would’ve loved a backstory on that.

That’s the only plot hole that grinds my gears pretty much, the rest of the film great, that and the graininess is my only criticism I have of Skinamarink.

I’m definitely giving a 7/10 yeah it’s an experimental horror, yeah it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea but if you have the time and patience to actually sit and watch it then go for it.

I can understand why people hated it, they basically said that it would’ve worked if it was a short rather than a feature length movie, and… I can see that, it does drag in some places but again, if you have the time and effort to actually focus on the movie then as I said… go for it.

It’s well worth a watch if you are in to experimental horror, rather than the conventional horror movies we know and love.

I just wish there could have been more, like I get it it’s supposed to be minimalistic I totally get that, I just wish they could’ve done more with it if you catch my drift.

I really enjoyed it and hopefully you guys will too!

If any of you guys reading this have seen Skinamarink, let me know your theories! I’m intrigued to know what they are.

But as always guys, catch ya later 🙂