Skinamarink

[03]

my brothers, what's been going on? ive missed yall. i was surprised that there wasn't a thread for this film yet. hands down my favorite horror film of the past i don't know ten years or so. had the privilege to see it in theater and definitely the most uncomfortable and terrified I have ever been seeing something on the big screen. not for everyone of course, but if you're into childhood nostalgia and horror, it will resonate with you tremendously. and the trailer is fucking dope. love you guys.

Two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing, and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished.
Release date: January 13, 2023 (USA)
Director: Kyle Edward Ball

[WorldForgot]

This movie iz neat in that it makes me excited for the Shoegaze equivalent of indepedent 'slow cinema' genre pieces.

It also put me and all my friends to sleep and I dont think I could recommend it to anyone except musicians / sound designers looking to practice scoring to images or DIY filmmakers needing a pep talk.

[polkablues]

I think at 45-60 minutes it would have been an undeniable masterpiece; at feature length it becomes something of an endurance test, but god, if you can get through it, there's no other movie in the world that can instill sheer primal existential dread on the same level as it. 

[WorldForgot]

That's very high praise. I wish i had felt any at all. I think the original Blair Witch, or even Lake Mungo, work better for me in terms of "homemade" dread. I don't adore those movies either.

The work of Bill Viola, or similar video-art artists, does make me feel what Skinamarink aims for, though -- so i can see the threads

[polkablues]

I can absolutely see the movie not working for me at all under different circumstances. I wouldn't watch it with other people, I wouldn't watch it during the daytime, I wouldn't watch it with my phone within reaching distance. It's a movie you have to work for; by its very nature, the film relies on your brain to subconsciously fill in the blanks and create imagery that doesn't necessarily exist in the actual image, like when you stare into a mirror in a dark room long enough to start hallucinating.

Jumping off your Bill Viola comp, the filmmaker that Skinamarink most evokes to me is actually Stan Brakhage, weirdly. The way that the inscrutability of the filmed image forces your brain into creating form and meaning that's individual to the viewer. It's less about showing you something to be scared of, and more about creating the environment for your mind to show you whatever it is that scares you specifically, or perhaps more accurately in Skinamarink's case, to make you remember the things that scared you when you were a small child and put you back into that state.

But again, in my opinion, its length works against it somewhat. Once your mind starts wandering, the spell gets broken, and it's so hard to stay in that zone for a full hour and a half.

[03]

Mic drop!