Skinamarink is a film that is labeled as a creepypasta. The definition of creepypastas is horror-related legends that have been shared around the Internet. Creepypasta has since become a catch-all term for any horror content posted on the Internet. These Internet entries are often brief, user-generated, paranormal stories intended to scare readers. It’s a subgenre of the horror genre.
The gist of the film is this. Two children wake up in the middle of the night, as children are known to do, and they can’t find their father. They keep calling out to him but he never answers them back. Along with this, they notice all the doors and windows of their house are missing. So what do they do? They go into the living room and watch television. And play with their legos.
While all this is going on the viewer at home or in the theater is freaked out because there are scenes of a woman who pops up from time to time and spooky sounds that I couldn’t put my finger on where they were coming from. There were also some strange angles the film puts the camera on and a very odd phone call. This movie goes to some weird places. And there are a few jumps if you’re not ready for them. And some whispering from the children.
The cinematography is very interesting in this film because as I mentioned there are a lot of strange angles the camera is put in and sometimes the movie goes to color and back to black and white. The director put the camera on inanimate objects like a toy or a wall. It’s hard to see sometimes what is being depicted on screen. But the odd sounds added to the camera angles and back and forth between color and black and white make for a very spooky film. Even though there isn’t much going on, the atmospheric nature is what creates the scary and odd nature of the film.
I’d never quite seen a film like this before and I wasn’t familiar with the term creepypasta but it worked for what the filmmaker was going for. There were a lot of voices and sounds that kept me interested in what was going on.
Actors were voicing these characters so this was a film that was purposely trying to be scary. And keep the audience watching genuinely spooked out. It worked on all levels even though I don’t get scared by horror films. I have to give the director, Kyle Edward Ball, credit. It was very effective in what it was trying to do from my perspective. The atmosphere was pretty dark and crazy which is what he was going for.
I watched Skinamarink in complete darkness to get the full effect of what the filmmaker was going for. It was genuinely a darkly scary film that the audience will definitely be creeped out by. The voices, the people, and all the camera angles as well as sounds added together to make this movie a success in my eyes. Even though I didn’t jump once during it doesn’t make it not a good film. For the budget of 15,000 dollars, this was a very creepy and spooky film. I applaud whoever green-lit this film because it’s a winner in all aspects. The entire hr and forty-minute runtime were used very well by the filmmaker.
3 ½
Dan Skip Allen
From the Fourth Row! 