How 'Skinamarink' breaks the cinema mould

2022s 'Skinamarink' is an eerily familiar horror film that took the world by storm by telling its story in an unusual way.

Before creating Skinamarink, its director Kyle Edward Ball, started off on YouTube where he built up a small fanbase through his creepy filming style. Edward would ask commenters to describe their nightmares and he would make them into short films for his youtube channel. This helped him build up this really identifiable filming style that he used in Skinamarink, having a lot of things out of focus, obscure close-ups of objects and weird colour correction.

These nightmares provided by his viewers would come to inspire Skinamarink, creating what we see today. Plain and simple, Skinamarink plays on your childhood fears, alluding to something lurking in the darkness of your house when you wake up in the middle of your house. That object in your bedroom that you swear you saw move. The hanging coat on your door that looks like a person. And the creaking floor in the hallway at three in the morning.

Skinamarink follows two children late in the night watching TV when suddenly all the doors and windows leading outside disappear along with their parents, leaving only them and the light of the TV illuminating the living room.

What this movie does to break the mould is simply through how the story is told. There is hardly any dialogue, only little bits of conversation between the boy and his sister saying that they love each other or talking about how to survive against whatever is in the dark. The camera is almost primarily used to just create atmosphere, giving you a sense of the space the kids inhabit and what is in it. The camera often fixates on an object, a pitch-black hallway or a corner of a door for ages making you question, “Is something there?”. This mixed with not seeing the faces of the kids puts you in their position.

This film puts you in that child-like mindset of fear. When you were a kid afraid of the dark and you thought you saw something move you would fixate on that area of the room, which is what the camerawork does in this film. It focuses on these corners, these dark areas and the things you would use as some form of protection, such as the light from the tv, hiding behind the couch and your toys.

You can't help but feel like you are in the room with these kids trying to keep away from whatever is lurking in the darkness. This is how Skinamarink breaks the mould, through its offset and out-of-focus camera work and its exploration of horrifyingly nostalgic fears we had when we were kids. If you are looking for something weird to watch over the week, then give this movie a try because it will definitely leave an impression. You can watch it on Shudder or Amazon if you get the shudder package for an extra £5 a month.