Kyle Edward Ball's micro-budget horror film Skinamarink, which went viral on Tiktok, has become a box office success that has already made 60 times its budget since its release last weekend. The film, made for a modest $15 and filmed in the director's childhood home, will be released on Shudder February 2 after an incredibly successful release in theaters. Despite Ball's minimalist approach, it evokes intense fear, evoking familiar, eerily nostalgic feelings of childhood horror. The film is set in 1995 and two young children, Kevin (Lucas Paul) and Kaylie (Dali Rose Tetro), wake up in the middle of the night to find something strange going on in their house.
The younger siblings do what any child who wakes up from a bad dream in the middle of the night does - they run to their parents' bedroom, only to find that their father is nowhere to be found and the doors and windows are missing. They take refuge in the downstairs living room, bringing blankets and pillows and playing old cartoons on the TV to make the eerie silence and darkness seem less frightening. The blue light from the TV is the only light source on the screen, casting a ghostly glow on the house. While the children take refuge in the downstairs living room, a mysterious voice tries to lure them upstairs. Ball evokes in many of us the feeling of fear that we experience as children, waking up in the middle of the night from a bad dream when the darkness of the night suddenly turns your home into some kind of ominous and scary place.
The movie is dark, literally and figuratively.
With minimal light sources, mostly from a flashlight or TV screen, many of the shots are in total darkness. The ball creates a disorienting atmosphere that encourages you to scrutinize every frame for something evil to be present. By showing us very little, the slightest sounds or sudden movements evoke horror.
As a child, the real monster is often the darkness itself and the possibilities of what might lurk in the shadows, a feeling Ball recreates throughout the film. He cuts to different, mundane aspects of the house, such as a dark hallway, allowing the camera to linger for long periods on a ceiling light, night light, or Legos on the floor. In lesser hands, these shots might seem meaningless, but Ball uses them to create an atmosphere in which the smallest details of the house seem like an ominous warning that something is wrong.
His drawn-out shots of simple everyday objects ask the viewer to look closely and pay attention, which pays off tenfold when we are confronted with a source of horror at the end of the film.
However, the soundtrack is filled with white noise
Amid the darkness, Ball uses sound design in a way that captures the chilling white noise of a house in the middle of the night. The grainy cinematography and minimal sound effectively reduce us to a kid roaming the house at night, hoping we won't find any monsters or intruders lurking in the dark. Along with the white noise in Skinamarink, we also hear cartoons in the background, creating a simple yet chilling symphony of childhood horror. This makes the moments when we hear an unexpected sound, such as the sound of a cartoon tune or a loud creak, even more harsh. White noise and dark, grainy cinematography leave you, the viewer, purposefully in the dark, looking for an answer along with the kids.
The horror of a film often comes not from what you're looking at on screen, but rather from the feeling that at any moment you might see something terrible in the shadows. One of the best examples of this is when an evil presence asks Kaylee to go upstairs to her parents' bedroom and look under the bed. The sequence is mostly dark and nothing is discovered under the bed, but the terrifying tension it creates closely mimics the feeling of fear when you're a child afraid to look under your bed to see what kind of monster you might find there. Ball's use of mysterious darkness is a key point, illustrating how any environment can seem scary if you can't see your surroundings.
Ball deprives children of their comfort one by one, turning everything from a teddy bear to a Barbie doll into a source of horror. A nightlight mysteriously falls out of its socket and one shot lingers on the socket, its ghostly form a reminder that these simple things can become frightening if you stare at them long enough. Gradually, more and more mundane aspects of the home begin to transform. Legos themselves crumble on the floor, and television cartoons begin to glitch, now they are more threatening than calming. In one memorable shot, the face of a children's Fisher-Price phone toy suddenly moves. Their sources of comfort in the darkness are taken away from them, gradually being consumed by this faceless, malevolent force in the house.
You rarely see children
The faces of the main characters, Kaylee and Kevin, are also rarely shown in Skinamarink. We hear their quiet whispers and naive ways of coping with fear - a constant reminder that they are incredibly ill-equipped to face such danger alone. Instead of calling 911 or screaming for help, they take juice boxes out of the refrigerator, which we later see are strewn across the floor by the mysterious creature. When children are shown, they are mostly on their knees.
We hear their low whispers as they tiptoe around the house, trying to find their parents, but they are faceless in the eyes of the viewer, which allows us to imagine ourselves in the place of children experiencing this nightmare. This makes the few moments when Ball shows evil, such as the short shot of Kaylee's face without eyes and mouth after the monster takes them, even more startling and terrifying.
One of the final dialogues perfectly conveys how Ball's film takes us back in time. Kevin asks, “Can we watch something fun?”, as if putting on another cartoon on the TV might keep the nightmare at bay a little more. Now they have nowhere to run; all sources of safety and distraction were destroyed, leaving them trapped in an awakening nightmare.
In his powerful debut, Ball brings our childhood fears to life, creating an awakening nightmare with nowhere to run. Ultimately, Skinamarink takes you, the viewer, back to feeling like a child woken up in the middle of the night, full of fear. Ball makes the most of minimal resources, luring the viewer into the familiar, haunting sense of fear of what monster might be lurking in the dark.
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