Skinamarink – Film Review

Have you ever sat down to watch a movie that got tons of great word-of-mouth, only to watch it and think to yourself “How in the world did this film get so much praise? What am I missing here?” That’s the exact same feeling I got upon watching Kyle Edward Ball‘s feature directorial debut horror film Skinamarink, which initially premiered at the 26th Fantastia Film Festival on July 25th of this year.

It’s certainly an ambitious film, I must admit, but that doesn’t make it any good. In truth, it’s one of the most boring and uneventful films I’ve ever seen in my life. It runs at an incredibly long one hundred minutes which may not sound like too long to you, but the problem here is that almost every single frame of this movie is the same.

It’s all just a bunch of static unmoving shocks with the occasional one or two words whispered by one of the kids. There is never a single moment in Skinamarink where we can feel scared or even just a little bit worried because the film practically tells you early on that there’s nothing to be scared of unless you have a phobia of static.

This movie also has some of the worst characterization I’ve ever seen in any movie. The lead kids in this movie are just kinda kids with no depth given to them whatsoever. It makes it so hard to root for them because we are never given a reason to. I get the feeling that the filmmakers just assumed we would care about them simply because they’re kids, but that’s not the case. We still need good reasons to care for these characters other than the fact that they’re young.

All of this movie is the prime example of why movies need to be more than just stylistic art pieces and need to tell a legitimately good story. This is a huge example of style over substance, and it’s one of the most pretentious movies out there because it seems as though the filmmakers think this movie will terrify the world when it’s simply going to put them to sleep.

As I was watching the film, I kept waiting for there to be something about it that I ended up enjoying, but I was disheartened when the credits rolled to find out that there wasn’t a single element that I actually enjoyed. From the moment it starts all the way to the moment it ends, Skinamarink is a daunting task to get through. Not because it’s so scary that you’ll have trouble watching it, but because it’s so boring you’ll find yourself wanting to turn it off every few minutes.