By Sol Harris
Skinamarink is being sold as a nightmarish horror film in which two children wake to discover the windows and doors missing from their home. That’s a somewhat disingenuous description given that that implies the film has characters and a plot. It’d be far more accurate to describe Skinamarink as 100 minutes of intentionally frustrating, close-up shots of door frames, the ceiling, toys on the floor and other mundane domestic paraphernalia – all punctuated by a couple of shots of doors and windows disappearing at the 15-minute mark.
Our characters rarely do anything – or even appear – and their actions are mostly implied when they do. The film asks to be taken as a surreal mood piece, but when the vast majority of its horror comes courtesy of the laziest form of jump scare – forcing your audience to sit in excruciatingly long shots of dark, nothingness, only to startle them with a loud screech and a flash of movement – it’s difficult to understand the buzz that it’s generating. Especially when the same circles championing it are the sort of people who would likely scoff at the remarkable craftsmanship on show in a film like The Conjuring.
The one shot which does work to elicit genuine fear – almost justifying the unpleasant, grainy, dark cinematography throughout the film – is far too reminiscent of a standout moment from last year’s Barbarian to do much in the way of redeeming the film.
Still, say what you will about Skinamarink. At least now we have a word to describe that specific way we used to torture our characters when we played The Sims as children.
Skinamarink is streaming on Shudder.
