Hiding under your bed

[shadowhive]

So tonight I watched Skinamarink, which I’d been meaning to watch for about a week but because of sickness then the tv dying I hadn’t been able to watch until now. So thoughts are under the cut

If there’s one word I’d use to describe Skinamarink its ‘unsettling’.

I went into seeing Skinamarink blind, I haven’t seen the trailer, all I knew was the synopsis and that I’d seen a few tweets talking about but I hadn’t read more into them. I’d say it’s probably best to go in blind so this is the last call for people that haven’t seen and might before I get into it.

So like I said, my thoughts on it is that it was unsettling. Other thoughts include ‘what did I just watch’ and ‘what happened?’ It was also oddly… compelling. I think if it was something I’d watch on tv I might have switched off but for some reason I kept watching and I’m not entirely sure why.

The plot’s basically this: two kids wake-up to find that they’re alone and not only that but the doors have gone.

So first I’ll cover the… strange choices before going on. First the camera angles for the entire thing are so strange. You barely see any features of the four people in it, which is rather strange. What you do see is odd angles, of the ceiling, the tv, Lego among other things. It’s also filmed through a filter (or maybe using retro equipment) which gives it a strange quality. At a few points it feels like it’s found footage style, although these kids wouldn’t be able to turn on a camcorder much less use one. (It did make me feel like Jack Manifold would like it for the vibes though)

It also felt kinda long, which I don’t say much and it was kinda slow.

Having said that the entity terrorising the kids (Skinamarink? I’ll call it that since it’s never named) was pretty creepy. At first it seemed like it might be a trickster (especially since there was an odd sound when things disappeared), then I thought it might be the kids apparently dead mum but then it was clearly something else, something more sinister. After watching I still don’t know what it wanted. Was it doing all this just to fuck with them? Was it trying to manifest? Was that actually their mum or just part of it? Honestly I dunno.

I have to admit it did make me jump twice and if you’ve seen you can probably guess which parts.

Would I watch it again? Probably not, but I’m curious what people thought. I do feel I might’ve missed something obvious.

Comments

[rhoda_rants]

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think the whole thing might just be based on a literal nightmare. Which are completely subjective depending on who dreams them. Some things are universally scary (darkness, no sense of time, doors are gone, etc.), but the rest? Someone's brain just threw some weird shit at them and kept them from sleeping soundly.

I dunno, maybe that's too easy, but that would explain why there are so many different interpretations for What Really Happened and What It All Means. This guy is VERY good at committing odd, unsettling images to film. It might be early to say this, but we might have another David Lynch on our hands here.

[shadowhive]

Oh that would make sense! It definitely does have a nightmare quality to it that would certainly fit (but if so whose nightmare is it? Is it Kevin? Kaylee? It could even be one of the parents considering what happens)

I definitely think what he did he did well, because it had me hooked even though I wasn’t full getting it

[rhoda_rants]

Yeah, that's the other thing—the multiple POVs just kind of throw a wrench into whatever theory you come up with. If it's about Kaylee, then what happens when she disappears from the story? If it's about Kevin, then what happens in those scenes where he's not there? I like the idea of it being the parents' nightmare, because it does kind of seem like any parent's nightmare: something bad happening to the children.

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[shadowhive]

That’s true! I’d think if it is a nightmare parents is most likely because that would explain all the switching. Then again it could be Kaylee having a nightmare (about bad things happening to her and then her brother) but would she be too young for that?