SKINAMARINK

     Time and time again, I have reiterated the simple fact that I am decidedly not a horror movie guy. I could blame my distaste for the modern horror slop tendencies to go overboard with gore, or I could simply say that I have a weak heart (the latter is most likely), but the bottom line is that I don't seek out horror movies to watch, as it just isn't the film genre for me.

    Having said this, however, every now and then certain horror movies are released that catch my eye. Sometimes it's because they blend comedy and horror so it's more palatable for me, other times it's because of a particularly unique concept (see my review of NOPE). Last year, when a small indie horror film titled SKINAMARINK began to make waves on film Twitter, I finally caved and decided to watch the movie with a small group of friends who were more horror-brained than I was. What resulted from this night was a highly divisive and controversial movie that split us between the ones who thought it was lame, and the others who thought it was one of the better horror movies they've ever seen.

    To summarize the basic premise of SKINAMARINK, the film follows two young children, Kevin and Kaylee, as they survive a nightmare scenario deep into the night in their home. They are awoken late at night to realize their parents have disappeared, and as the night progresses, the windows and doors of their home disappear as well, leaving them trapped in their dark house. The children decide to sleep downstairs by the TV to watch cartoons through the night, but they are occasionally terrorized by random events, like a fake version of their mom on the bed, toys that stick to the ceiling, and an unseen presence that instructs the children to do certain things with its creepy voice, like sticking a knife into one of their eyes.

    If this feels kind of extreme, it's only because I'm listing everything that happens in the film within a sentence. When watching the movie, viewers experience a very slow dragging movie, with very little happening from scene to scene. For many audiences, this results in a pretty boring experience that typically ends with them giving up early on the movie. Hell, even my buddy Wade, who is our resident "movie guy," had fallen asleep only thirty minutes into the movie. Having said this, however, I couldn't disagree with the idea that this is a bad movie enough: if anything, I thought it was really smart filmmaking.

    A basic idea in horror is suspense -> payoff, which is a rule also mirrored in comedy, though it uses "setup" rather than "suspense". In most horror movies, you have moments of suspense and tension, like a character moving through a quiet, dark hallway, and you have subsequent moments of payoff, like a jumpscare of a monster surprising them suddenly. Through mediatization, audiences have now come to understand this pattern in horror filmmaking, and typically see the jumpscares coming, which makes that tense feeling of suspense evaporate, since they expect the payoff.

    SKINAMARINK is unique in the sense that while it has plenty of suspense and tension, there is never a payoff (at least, not in the traditional manner). Wade and I have had a few conversations about movies and how we watch them, and he mentioned something he learned in his film school classes that has stuck with me ever since: movies teach you how to watch them. Basically, the entire process of watching a movie is also a learning experience for what to expect within the movie, like when to expect punchlines for jokes, or how to pay attention to certain details in order to understand more of the movie. SKINAMARINK is a perfect example to play with this concept, because it understands that its audience already has a preconception of how to watch the movie, like any horror movie with that pattern of tension -> payoff. However, it subverts this expectation, and instead only gives you suspense with no payoff, leaving the audience perpetually in a state of anxious tension as they wait for a release, but it never arrives.

    This was the kind of stuff I really like out of horror. Tension and suspense is what gets me invested into a movie, not overindulgent gore or sudden jumpscares. And to have a film that was almost purely tension was really inspiring to me, though it did illustrate that most audiences wouldn't appreciate it. But the beauty is that if people did stick around, if they did have the attention span to watch the entire movie, they would get treated to one of the most haunting film endings I've ever seen. Remember what Wade said about the movie teaching you how to watch it? Well, SKINAMARINK teaches its viewers that no matter how long you stare into the grainy dark, there is nothing there. Time and time again, the camera lingers on shots of empty hallways and dark rooms, which compels people to search for a hidden figure in the dark, like they're used to seeing in other horror movies. But time and time again, there's nothing in the dark. The film plays with the paranoia every child has of something hiding in the dark, and how that fear continues through into adulthood. So the movie teaches you even though you feel like there's something there, in reality there's nothing hiding in the dark.

This isn't the last shot, just an example

    But then the ending of the movie happens. Once again, the audience faces the grainy dark, lingering on a space of nothingness for an uncomfortable amount of time. But then, as your eyes accustom to the darkness, you begin to recognize that finally, there is something there, staring right back at you with its nondescript face. It's blank like a mannequin, with only the mere hint of a face. But unquestionably, you know it's staring right at you in silence.  Finally, after over an hour of staring into nothingness, the nothingness stares back.

    I literally got goosebumps when I was writing the last paragraph as I remembered that scene. That sinking, dreadful feeling that started at the base of my neck, with heat dripping and dropping down my body and pooling in my stomach, that primal dread was unlike anything I've ever felt when watching a movie. And it accomplished this without the flashiness of a jumpscare, or the brutal goriness of other films. Instead, it simply knew its audience, and knew exactly what to do to maximize the effect on each viewer. It was a masterclass in tension and final payoff for me, and though others didn't really like it, I remain one of the strongest defenders of this movie.