It’s hard to have a film that is practically faceless, but not impossible, as Skinamarink shows. This highly experimental horror takes the idea of space and personality, only to twist both into something so uncanny that it cannot do anything but stick in your mind. But does this make the film great? For me, it’s impossible to say, as the process of watching for me was just as boring, and it was terrifyingly memorable.
The film’s premise involves two kids, aged four and six, waking up in their home in the middle of the night. Their father is missing, and all of the doors and windows of the same house are gone too. In the preceding hours and days, we get an experience that is not just survival of those unable to care for themselves, but something horrifically transcended.
The problem is that this experience elongates through time almost to infinity. Endlessly long shots of corridors and room corners, kids whose faces are (almost) never shown, and a pressing design of eerie soundscapes all build into a cumbersome watching process. If the film lacks anything, it is that power to immerse the viewers in its strange rhythm. Similarly, low-budget, experimental films like Come True do that almost miraculously. Skinamarink struggles with it nearly from the beginning.
The film’s writer and director, Kyle Edward Ball, clearly made film history with this work of art. It’s so unusual and impactful that it will leave few in any other state than adoration or complete rejection. Yet, I can’t stop myself from believing that with a more immersive setup and a clearer drive for its obscured narrative, Skinamarink could have been one of the best horrors in the past decade.
