YMMV / Skinamarink

• Alternative Character Interpretation: A LOT, given the deliberately vague, surreal nature of the film.
  • Much has been made about the kids at first having a minimal, borderline indifferent reaction to their parents being missing and the doors and windows disappearing from their home. Is this simply because, being only 4 and perhaps 6 years old, they simply do not fully comprehend the bizarre and horrific situation they are in? Or is it suggestive of something even more sinister?
  • What is the thing tormenting the siblings? The way it acts is so consistently weird leads many to reject the idea that it's strictly a traditional "monster", but even taking it as some kind of Allegorical Character, there are many split ideas on the metaphor it supposedly represents. What does it want? Why does it act so hostile towards the kids, but also strangely protective? Is that really what it looks like in the darkness at the end? This article proposes that the entity is itself a child, and that its cruelty is more akin to a toddler breaking their toys for fun rather than the calculated, directed abuse of an adult.
  • The kids' mother has attracted a ton of speculation, not just because the story doesn't give an answer as to what her deal is and why the kids seem mildly afraid of her, but even the hints about her go in wildly different directions. Is she actually dangerous, and that's why she doesn't appear to live in the same house as Kevin, Kaylee, and their father? Or is she genuinely loving, but is dealing with something troublesome she can't explain to her children? The scene where she briefly appears in the father's bedroom after he disappears to tell Kaylee that she loves her and Kevin very much throws further wrenches into the conversation; is she aware of the entity that's tormenting her children? Is she the entity? Some combination of the two? In any case, what do the sporadic acts of violence and cruelty implicitly tied to them relate to? A messy divorce? Spousal abuse? Parental abuse? Or perhaps something genuinely supernatural?
  • The prologue of the kids' father calling about having taken Kevin to the doctor for a head injury has also received many an interpretation, with probably the most common being that the bruises Kevin received were actually from one or both of the parents physically abusing him, with the story that Kevin fell down the stairs actually being a lie (mostly because this is a common excuse used to cover up child abuse in real life). Some also speculate that this incident is directly responsible for the surreal lens the film is perceived through, as it's largely through Kevin's point of view.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: It's implied that all the public domain cartoons that play on the TV throughout the movie are contained on a single VHS tape. While the Entity is clearly seen manipulating the footage at multiple points throughout the movie, cheaply produced VHS tapes of royalty free cartoons were quite common throughout the 90s and lots of them were multiple hours long with hundreds of individual cartoons per tape.
• Critical Dissonance: On Rotten Tomatoes, it's got about 75% from critics, but roughly 48% from audiences. This is a low-budget arthouse film, with unconventional shots, weird audio mixing, and auteur storytelling done to deliberately put viewers off-balance, and while that's earned it critical admiration for just how unusual and inventive it can be, it's naturally a tough sell to a casual audience member expecting a "normal" horror film and may just instead find it long-winded and boring.
• Ending Fatigue: A common criticism from fans and non-fans alike is that the film is too long at one hundred minutes. The main difference seems to be whether it could use a trimming of ten to twenty minutes or whether the concept would be better suited for a short film.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Given the film's ambiguity, lack of conventional plot structure, and overall strangeness, it's been the subject of a number of theories, ranging from "it's a metaphor about children suffering from an abusive household", "it's a replication of how children experience nightmares", to even "it's a loose retelling of Hansel and Gretel".
• Fan Nickname: The antagonist has been dubbed "the Skinamarink" by some fans for want of a real name.
• Friendly Fandoms: With fans of House of Leaves. Some have said it's the closest thing to a film adaptation of the book, or at least of The Navidson Record.
• Heartwarming Moments: Following Kaylee's excursion into her father's bathroom and discovering something that scares the daylights out of her, she rushes back to Kevin and quickly forms a barricade in the living room. Seeing his sister in distress, Kevin takes a moment of quiet afterwards to bring her some juice. Even though both of them are deeply afraid of whatever unexplainable, unknowable force is in their house, they're still doing the best they can to help and protect each other.
• Hype Backlash: The film gained a lot of word-of-mouth buzz on social media, which included some calling it "the scariest movie ever", so needless to say, many failed to see what the fuss was all about—especially those who began watching it without being aware that it was an experimental film.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The Fisher Price Telephone toy that shows up in several scenes (and is the perpetrator of one of the film's most memorable jump scares) became one on Twitter, with some calling it the scariest monster of the year.
  • A remix of the opening verses of the song WAP by Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B, in which the creepy voice saying "In this house" is overlayed with the repeated phrase "There's some whores in this house." This also plays into the playful re-wording of the same phrase "There's some horrors in this house."
• Realism-Induced Horror: Some have noted that the movie is more effective if one had a similar childhood experience of waking up in a dark house without any parental aid available.
• Signature Scene:
  • Kaylee being told by the voice to look under the bed and her mother appearing on top of the bed after she checks became this as it's both the film's first genuinely terrifying moment and the point where all hell starts to break loose.
  • The toy telephone jumpscare.
• Special Effect Failure: The heavy film grain is quite obviously a digital filter, as it can be seen reversing and looping itself every 15 seconds or so, with the same scratches and blemishes appearing in the exact same spots over and over again. While it’s harder to notice on a home viewing, it unfortunately becomes pretty visible on a theater screen.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • To the otherwise hard to adapt House of Leaves, specifically The Navidson Record, as both focus on an Eldritch Location with Alien Geometries that wavers between eerily quiet and violently hostile.
  • It could also be seen as a film version of the works of Kitty Horrorshow, specifically Anatomy, with its Analog Horror roots and use of Nothing Is Scarier and Surreal Horror. Some even speculate that it has a similar twist to Anatomy where the house is self-aware but has been abandoned long ago, and the two children are ghosts manifested from it going mad with loneliness.
  • Also to The Blair Witch Project, as both are No Budget horror films that focus on small casts being tormented by a mysterious entity that we never get a clear look at. Also both feature long stretches where little of note happens for the purpose of building tension. Also, both went semi-viral on the internet prior to release.
  • And more directly to Kyle Edward Ball's preceding short film Heck, which is less than a third as long, employs many of the same storytelling devices and scares, and to some is the superior film such as how it's supposedly a bit more restrained with its jump scares.

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