Skinamarink

2023 - covering my year in horror

*Spoilers Included, Be Wary…

My first horror film of the year, and god damn, it might just end up being the best. Kyle Edwards Ball would like to take you back to the days of your youth when darkness and silence were mortifying. Where it was easy to find your world turned upside down, and where grown ups were both your saviors and your demons. Skinamarink, taken from a song title, is a boldly experimental foray into the most horrifying subject of all: family abuse and violence. And if this song and video don’t hammer home the hidden menace of abuse, you sure do live a sheltered life.

Shot in his own childhood home, Ball knows every corner of this house. And you will too because by the end of the movie, you might well spend solid time in each of those shadowy corners.

The movie follows two very young children who meander about in the dark, their only light the television playing vintage cartoons, which menace more than sooth. What exactly happens takes some interpretation, but I think it’s fair to say that there is a dark presence in this house, and no one will escape it. And Kevin, the youngest, may have experienced a specific trauma that kicks things off.

We never see an adult’s face, and we only see one of the children’s faces, and even then, uh, yeah. The pacing is glacial. Ball is in no hurry. I’ve read many complaints that the movie is too long, too arty, not scary enough, and on and on. It is a long movie, and if it wasn’t scary for you, I supposed it would be extremely boring. Especially if you have some sort of bug up your ass about what you consider the be an “art film.” When that term is used as a pejorative, you’ve already lost me. I think the pacing is part of its power. The anxiety I felt watching, realizing what the meaning of the story was, and waiting for the dark to consume you, was pure horror goodness.

I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m not a young man anymore either. I have been through a lot, and I‘ve seen the depths of human depravity. I know what we’re capable of. And that, to me, is a big part of what this movie is saying.

Even in the most mundane of suburban family homes, even there, you can never escape the threat of an abusive adult. The most monstrous thing you could ever possibly conceive of growing up is the language of Skinamarink.

As I said above, I would not be surprised if Skinamarink winds up being the best horror film I’ve seen all year. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!