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It's a scary night for young Kevin (Lucal Paul) and Kaylee (Dali Rose
Tetreault), a night in which lights go on and of for no apparent reason,
doors that have always been there suddenly disappear, even a toilet
disappears into thin air, and their dad (Ross Paul) is suddenly gone,
while mom (Jaime Hill) seems to be weirdly distant. The kids decide to
camp in the living room with all of their Lego and watch vintage cartoons
- which are at times disturbing by themselves (and yes, among the cartoons
they're watching is the utterly creepy Cobweb Hotel). Eventually
mom is gone, too, the Lego bricks develop a life of their own, and even
Kaylee is on the brink of disappearing - and then there's voice, urging
the kids to "play with me" ...
The success story of Skinamarink is an interesting one
for sure, inasmuch as it was actually due to a leak at an online film
festival that the film was pirated, and sections of it made it onto TikTok
and YouTube where it was soon celebrated as one of the most disturbing and
scary movies ever, which eventually led to a limited theatrical release
over Martin Luther King jr Day 2023, where the movie reportedly made
$890,000 - which given the film's $15,000 budget is a remarkable financial
success. And that said, the film's anything but a crowdpleaser, it's a
highly experimental movie, one that most of the times shies away from
showing its characters (let alone their faces), tries to get away with
including very little dialogue - and most of that's pretty arbitrary. And
that approach, coupled with almost uncomfortably grainy images, unusual
camera angles and a certain disregard for established cinematic language,
create an effect that's disturbing for sure. The one thing is, at almost
100 minutes, the film goes on a trifle too long, and eventually things
start to get repetitive, especially when one has come to grow accustomed
to the film's very own language. Now compressed into 45 to 100 minutes,
this film could have probably hit it out of the ballpark in terms of
creepiness, but as it is, it's more interesting than actually brilliant.
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