Written by Cameron Geiser

What’s the difference between scary and creepy? While what scares you feels more personal to who we are as individuals, the creepiness of an image, a peculiar sound, or even a mood or an atmosphere can feel more universal. That uneasy feeling is at the center of what makes filmmaker Kyle Edward Ball’s first feature so unsettling. Set in the pre-internet nights of 1995, Skinamarink keys in on the nostalgia of childhood fear. This is very much an experimental horror film, but if you let the room-tone white noise of the film wash over you, you’ll soon find yourself being lulled into the strange rhythm of this film.

In lieu of the most familiar structure in films like dialogue or outright “characters”, Skinamarink becomes both less like a film, and more like a collective nightmare we all shared at one time. Which gives the film this small unique space to live in where it balances between being familiar and eerily uncanny. Most shots in the film aren’t of the family involved, but of the spaces and places one would stare at least in their daily lives. The children of the film, Kevin (Lucas Paul) and Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault), will often walk through the frame, but the camera placement is always close to the ground, or of a hallway where we only see the backs of their heads or feet when facing away from the camera. This is mostly when they’re listening to, or talking with, the voice from beyond the void.

After getting spooked by the seemingly interdimensional pop-in of various windows and doors that hadn’t existed there before, the kids decide to sleep downstairs when they can’t find Mom (Jaime Hill) or Dad (Ross Paul) anymore. The living room holds their creature comforts with the familiar ambience of an old analog TV stuttering as it flickers to life amidst scattered legos and blankets littering the floor. Somewhat brilliantly, the TV brings ancient animations to life with cartoons from the 1930’s playing amidst all the building dread. The film will often cut to various liminal spaces in the house with the TV’s muffled noise looming in the background and the occasional sparse dialogue from the half awake kids as they faintly try to understand what’s happening.

This one was a fascinating experiment in slow-burn, liminal space horror, and I do encourage people to check it out. Not that the film needs my recommendation as it quickly became a viral sensation on TikTok, but as it’s the debut of a burgeoning new filmmaker it inspires excitement and a great new potential. The last time I was this excited by a new creative presence in filmmaking was after seeing Swiss Army Man from Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert who recently gave the world the multiverse masterpiece Everything Everywhere All At Once. I know I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next lo-fi creepfest from Kyle Edward Ball. Skinamarink is now in select theaters through IFC Midnight and it’s also currently available on Shudder.

Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.