By Jack Bottomley 

Earlier this year, writer/director Kyle Edward Ball’s directorial debut Skinamarink was an unexpected indie horror hit, which later found a home on Shudder and was a true original. 

Undoubtedly a film that will be – and has been – met with strong opinion. This is horror on a very stripped back scale. So much so that outlining the actual plot is somewhat difficult because you kind of create your own film here based on your reading of it.

Basically, Skinamarink sees two children awake at night, their parents are gone and they wander the dark hallways of their home, with only the TV screens for light, and the doors and windows of their home have vanished.

This is a bold debut, one that taps into primal horrors of the human condition, those formed in the darkest parts of the childhood psyche. Undoubtedly experimental, it is a horror film that makes monsters of the dark, evil of the non-diegetic sound in the night, and ghouls off of youthful fears and anxieties. 

Isolation, the mind, and horrifying imagery based on objects of childhood joy are the order of the day here, and the narrative is nearly entirely open to interpretation. Playing out as though it was that tape from Ringu. 

While we admire the experiment, deployment of psychological horrors and applaud seeing something very unique in the ’70s style grainy camerawork that captures any faceless dialogue-light characters from behind or at feet level. You can’t shake the feeling that this would have fared better as a short (or at least shorter feature), as 100 minutes in its company and sinister aesthetic really comes to strand you eventually. 

The film could really have used a couple more firm narrative points to piece together its tale, as frustration does set in with some overly repeated tactics and long drawn out techniques, particularly in the last stretch, a finale that really comes to distort earlier perceptions and things spin a bit too much out of hand, leaving an unsatisfying aftertaste.

A select audience will crown Skinamarink as a new classic in horror, while others will likely dismiss it as ‘hallway: the movie’. Both are valid depending on your view, but if you are in the mood, Skinamarink has a memorably distinctive nightmarish aura, and is a most intriguing horror film, if a flawed and frustrating vision.

This Blu-Ray release we reviewed compliments the film, with the visuals and audio being well amplified, but still maintaining their throwback imperfection and grit. While the slight extras really only have a rather fascinating audio commentary from Kyle Edward Ball and Director of Photography Jamie McRae as the special feature, which is as ‘guided by the hand’ as this purposefully divisive film gets.  

Skinamarink is out now on DVD and Blu-Ray.