Skinamarink
Skinamarink nails its analog horror atmosphere, but compared to the viral videos it's trying to emulate, it runs too long and falls too short
Skinamarink boasts a better backstory than other thumbnails in Shudder’s catalogue. A leaked screener went viral last year, and the internet found it freakier than 2022’s more conventional horrors. But is it as traumatising as TikTok tells us?
Well, it will charge the hairs on the back of your neck. Distorted VHS effects engulf a cryptic, skin-and-bones plot. Late one night in mid-90s Canada, youngsters Kevin and Kaylee realise their dad has disappeared. Doorways and windows begin blinking out of existence. We never see the kids clearly, only silhouettes who resolve to keep watching cartoons in the dark, whispering warnings to each other about the garbled voice coming from upstairs. It’s a distant, detached depiction of reality, like nightmares from the depths of a child’s mind once the nightlight’s gone out. However, Skinamarink’s bag of tricks takes an age to start satisfying, which is unusual, considering its modest length.
So how does a film featuring more grainy shots of skirting boards than lines of dialogue become lauded by TikTok as “the scariest film of all time”? The internet’s always had a fetish for analog horror – influential examples include The Backrooms or Local58. But 100 minutes is a long time to ask your audience to stay on the edge of their seat, whereas YouTubers kept the creepiness to a consumable ten minutes. Skinamarink’s static images tick the aesthetic box, but it’s only an entryway into the otherworldly genre, and certainly nothing worth crying out for your parents over.
Skinamarink is available on Shudder, and plays at GFT from 17 Mar