Skinamarink Review

Review of Skinamarink (2022) by screenqueeen: 👍 3/5

First time in I couldn't tell you how long where I physically could not look at the screen in parts. I'm intrigued to check out Ball's proof-of-concept short and his youtube channel. For all the buzz this is getting it still feels like it's just only very good at performing one particular thing when I think it could do more, especially with the real estate of a 100-minute runtime.

The jumpscares are done with grace but you can't really shape them in any way that's really any different than how any movie would utilize them. Because I knew they were coming it just kind of annoyed me, I'd rather have stared into the blackness and let my mind create images of my own devising without regularly spaced loud & bright checkpoints. They feel like they're put in a little begrudgingly after the first few times, save for the last perhaps.

But the real creepy crawliness that this communicates so well isn't just the use of darkness, grain, or scratches but a genuinely skewed sense of space that makes me think of the infamous camera angle Lynch comes back to during TWIN PEAKS, FIRE WALK WITH ME, and THE RETURN that fixates on Laura Palmer's room with the ceiling fan bisecting the house from the haven that was her room.

"What's your name?" An image that will be stuck in my head for eternity, I hope.