‘Skinamarink Review: An Experimental Houseat3:00A.M. Horror Film That Touches The Uncanny

© Available in varieties

If I were an aspiring horror producer like Jason Bloom, one of the first things I'd do this year would be offer Skinmarink writer-director Kyle Edward Ball a contract. But it would be a special deal, comparable to what Mel Brooks made with David Lynch to direct The Elephant Man after Brooks saw and enjoyed Eraserhead.

Skinamarink is not like other horror movies. Made for $15,000, it's a silent, almost no plot, almost no people (though there are a few child actors on the side) experimental silent film that consists mostly of still shots of a house. , which was the director's childhood home) around 3 in the morning. The film will premiere Jan. 13 in select megaplexes and locations; You want to experience it with the audience like a seance. I found Skinamarink awful, but it's a film that requires (and rewards) patience and therefore has the potential to cause a riot (not to mention a devastating CinemaScore rating). But if you follow it, you can feel that you have touched the extraordinary.

The lights are dim, the rooms and corridors are mostly deserted, and the usual images are a glimpse of a carpeted corridor, or an upward angled shot of a door leading into darkness, or a messy image of a playroom. Lego pieces are scattered around - and then another piece is thrown to the side with an alarming crash, and we can't see who (or what) threw it.

As Skinamarink moves through this unprecedented inner space, each frame presenting another terrifying piece of the puzzle, the film invites us to relive all the childhood fears you had about monsters lurking late at night. Shadows Most of what we see is not supernatural, but there are images that tempt us in that direction (for example, a door jamb that suddenly disappears). The trick of the film is to keep looking for signs in the frame, an effort that becomes all the more hypnotic when we realize that yes, there is a monster here, even if not the kind of monster in other films. Horror movies are often shot in the dark. Skinmaring is one of the few that causes the horror of a truly cursed night .

This film has less plot than Eraserhead, although its slow, smooth nightmarish atmosphere is strongly reminiscent of the 1977 classic. The movements of the turtles, the corridors where the dim light flashes with electric pulses, the soundtrack filled with invisible white noise , where old music plays in the distance (in this case, mostly from old cartoons on TV) - all this is secret Lynch.

The effects don't end there. TV, with its treacherous look and endlessly stomping cartoons, is designed as a portal, which certainly suggests a poltergeist, even if in this case it doesn't show the spirit that emerges from it. Carl T. of Skinmark Vampire. Like Dreyer's Poltergeist. In addition, the diabolical poem is based on a stalker setting reminiscent of the terrifying opening of Michael Mann's Manhunter, where a serial killer's torch illuminates the stairway of a thickly carpeted house.

True silence is the sound… the wood paneling, the old painted door frames, the night lights that seem to vibrate… the cameras roll so the movie looks like Dr. White. Caligari illuminated by cathode ray tubes… a Fisher-Price telephone that seems almost alive… it whispers and breathes… it drips slowly from the walls… wait… is it blood?

Canadian Kyle Edward Ball is no doubt a connoisseur of early semi-underground horror, but he works with his own visionary weirdness. Skinmarking was shot on analog film using a vintage camera and cinematographer Jamie McRae did a great job immersing the footage in the early 1970s. The atmosphere is very modern. As the title suggests, the action of the film took place in 1995, which is considered the last year before the advent of the Internet. We can say that the network itself replaces the devil in our imagination, because it is a kind of demon, a metaphysical binding force. There's a menacing essence at work in Skinmaring, but it's a spirit that can't be separated from the uneasy atmosphere that pervades our minds.

There are such characters: 4-year-old son Kevin (Lucas Paul) and his 6-year-old sister Kaylee (Delly Rose Tetreault), whose parents go missing, leaving them alone in the house. We see their legs, or the back of their heads, or hear their voices with subtitles. And we hear a little stuttering voice, which we take to be the voice of the Father, and then we realize it's Satan. He spoke like a serial killer, with cool, gentle authority. "Kelly didn't do what she was told," he said, "so I ripped her face off." We asked ourselves: is it true? What's happening in Skinomarine surprises you, so you're not just scared; Believe. But you also want to believe your eyes, and in a stunning final shot, the film gives us the vision we've been waiting for, a manifestation of evil appearing from another world than our own. Cinema is a portal that connects the viewer with the world around him.

Click here to read the full article.