Review of Skinamarink (2023) by Xylopylo — 14 Jan 2023

I seriously cannot understand how this movie doesn't have more bad reviews. I sat in the theater baffled at how I hadn't seen any warning about how frighteningly dull this movie really is.

If you enjoy staring at the tops of doorways, an unmoving hallway wall, legos, and an old childeren's cartoon, then this is going to be the most thrilling 100 minutes of your life, now if that doesn't sound fun to you, then you're with me.

From what I can tell from others, it seems that people find this to be a "Horror genre changing movie" but instead of action in this new form of genre we're gearing toward awful visuals, literal minutes of nothing on screen and no audio other than a god awful static. The whole movie looks as if it were filmed on a literal brick which makes it nauseating to watch and have I already mentioned the static noise? Let me mention it again, it gets old really fast.

You may ask what about any of these things relates this frighteningly dull movie to anything in a horror genre. After maybe an hour you get your first "jumpscare" which is one of the kids screaming at a toy and blowing out the mic. Now, we don't really see either of the children or the parents through the movie as the whole thing is told by minimal dialogue as the camera focuses on one of the seven different walls or sets they have in the movie.

I was genuinely about to fall asleep several times from the dark and uninteresting visuals only disturbed by a one off phrase or something like the television playing which kept me from really falling asleep. Honestly this could have been released as an audio file played over a blank screen and one would have the same experience listening as I did watching it. There are parts where the movie will rewind the same scene, then play it forward again, then rewind, and so on which honestly feels sloppy and lazy. It feels like there was maybe 15 to 30 minutes worth of content and the rest is pure padding, and not the kind to make you suspenseful, but rather like a rollercoaster that doesn't climb or doesn't drop, simply going around a level circle.

If I weren't at a theater with family I would have walked out after maybe 7 minutes. I know for a fact if it was put on at home, we would have gotten 5 minutes in, realized you can't see anything, given it another 2 to get better and then turned it off.

I really tried to give this movie a chance, but in the end it was obvious why me and my two family members were the only ones in the theater. I expect more from a movie, even one with that low of a budget. If you think that staring at walls and doorframes in the dark is for you, at least save yourself the money from a ticket and just do it at home.