Film Review: Skinamarink

 I've tried to commit to writing more often on the blog...with a mix of success from week to week. I figure if I can at least manage 2 posts a week that's a good number. As usual, this is more about providing me with a medium for exercising my writing brain and habits more than anything; I feel I've let them atrophy over the last couple years, need to turn that around!

I used to write a lot more critiques on film and games, so let's try more of that. Today: Skinamarink, a 2023 film release that is worth a watch (for some)!

The negative space has taken everything

Skinamarink (2023) (trailer)

Only available on Shudder.com currently (the only streaming service I have subscribed to for almost as long as Netflix),  Skinamarink released in January of this year to the angst and anxiety of an endless array of unsuspecting viewers. Shudder is a great horror site for obscure, hard to find and unusual films. It has some more conventional stuff, and indeed if you're into genres such as 80's horror and slasher flicks its got you covered. But if you want to also find some really unusual rare gems, strange things which can exist nowhere else comfortably, Shudder's got it. 

Skinamarink is an example of this specialized "this peg won't fit anywhere" genre of film. It's not quite a movie in any sense most people would consider....I'd actually draw closer comparisons to experimental films such as those of David Lynch (Eraserhead comes to mind), or the cavalcade of exotic and often surreal, inexplicable arthouse shorts that existed in days of yore (and may still exist), only discoverable at a local indie film house. In the 80's and 90's a movie like Skinamarink just wouldn't exist where the plebs could find it. Today its a film that manages limited theatrical releases and resides for confused and angry plebs to discover on streaming. 

The most important thing to know before watching Skinamarink is that its not a film in any conventional sense, though arguably a narrative does sort of happen. It's more of an experience, and not a pleasant one; almost no one will want to watch this more than once for anything other than the most clinical of reasons. Skinamarink is meant to be experienced, analyzed, then lauded or damned for its results, but never forgotten.

Key in the film's repertoire of effects is an intent to use a grotesque audio, digitally rendered film grain imperfections, filming almost entirely in darkness or with limited use of light, and even then only if the light itself causes discomfort with flickering CRT-modulation effects whenever possible. The most important trick of all is focusing almost entirely and exclusively in the negative liminal spaces. The camera of Skinamarink never looks at the people it is about (primarily two children and briefly two adult parents); you barely get a glimpse of their faces, once each, later in the film, and never of the dad and mom. The camera instead shows you the odd corners of the room, especially the ceiling, or the corner of the area away from whatever is happening. It may infer action from noise or occasional motion or shadow, but its deliberately choosing to never actually show you anything that is actually happening. It is designed to create an unnerving sense in the viewer, by focusing entirely on these negative spaces where no film would ordinarily ever reside except for the barest of moments for effect; in Skinamarink, it lingers entirely and exclusively in those spaces.

The film's story is minimalist, barely there. A house, a dad, a couple kids, a mom who is inferred not to be there but later briefly is. We only see "action" on two occasions, through the eyes of the children, breaking the otherwise persistent focus on negative spaces. The implication is the house is under control of something malevolent, and the kids are trapped with it. No explanations or plot are forthcoming beyond the most rudimentary. There are really only about three "things" of note that happen. The rest of the film is all about ambience and a unique form of don't show, don't tell, only imply, until about the last 10 minutes of the movie when it's focus doesn't really change....but the negative spaces end up being "where things are happening."

The entire thing is jarring and unpleasant to watch. Many reviewers on Shudder liken it to evoking how they felt as children scared of the dark, which is interesting. Many others were just annoyed the movie tricked them into thinking it actually was some sort of normal movie....woopsie. For me, it was a bit of a slog, because it felt like it was using about 30-40 minutes worth of tricks over a whopping hour and forty minute run, which is insane. But I won't say I regret watching it; it's a unique experience, and if you're into the making of films and cinematography I imagine this is a very interesting experiment to watch in action.

My biggest complaint is that the artificially generated film grain imperfections are both distracting and nauseating. With the film length it becomes easy to notice patterns of repetition in the generated artifacts, and that proved distracting. I kept wondering if my experience of the film would shift from discomfiting unease and annoyance to genuine interest if it simply removed the film grain effect, but I also felt that the reason it was there was to create deliberate optical uncertainty, to make the viewer's mind keep searching the imperfect darkness for things, and, of course, to make the viewer discomfited and uneasy. Still....I'd love to see what this movie looks like with the film grain off in most shots.

From the perspective of judging this as an experimental surrealist/horror genre film, it accomplishes what it sets out to do, though it is arguably nowhere close to the level of eerie unpleasantness that I found a movie like Eraserhead to be (the only film I can think of offhand to compare it to). If you want to see a movie with the eye of a film enthusiast or to study their technique, I think this is absolutely worth it. If you like experimental films in general, Skinamarink won't disappoint. But if you want to see an actual movie with something amounting to a plot, characters and events that happen, Skinamarink is probably going to make you a little mad. So....Solid B- from me for an art film, but don't see it with any other expectations.