SKINAMARINK (2022) Explained 

When skinamarink said “it’s skinamarinking time” and proceeded to skinamarink all over the family was the most skinamarinky part of skinamarink.

I've heard some people that have reviewed this movie say that they thought that they would never see a movie made on a shoestring budget get talked about like this. Some were comparing this to sort of like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity.

I caught a bit of the film at the theatre I work at and I was honestly so confused and unnerved I couldn't stop staring at the screen. But nothing happened to relieve the tension, it was like Amnesia

I haven’t been this disturbed watching a movie since Eraserhead. The shots in that one eventually made me so uneasy and queasy that I STILL haven’t watched it in its entirety. It felt the same after this one. I found it highly effective- and It disturbed me to my core. Interesting too because I was never afraid of the dark as a kid. I think it was their powerlessness and the quirky camera angles and everything eventually being upside down.. not sure what it did to my psyche but it definitely did something. I loved it.

It sounds like a weird dreamscape. You see familiar things but the things don't do normal things.

you are the only youtuber I have consistently watched over the years. No drop in quality, no begging us to smash the like button every 2 seconds, humble and humorous. Stay awesome bruh, love these fucking videos, there isn't enough time in my life to watch all these movies and you come through clutch with the breakdowns. edit: this movie looks ass lol

As a child that suffered through excruciating nightmares, although the film scared the Sh out of me, I like to interpret it as a long nightmare Kevin had, but had woken up from at the end. I like scary movies where horror ENDS and I like to think that it did for Kevin.

I got the interpretation of some sort of limbo or purgatory. Something terrible happened already. And everyone is dead. In a Ammvtyiille fashion, the father killed the entire family.. which is why the mother is seen briefly trying to comfort them and the mysterious voice that keeps attempting to lure them to it is his father or some sort of iteration of his evil spirit. They’re all practically unexcersised ghosts who are doomed to repeat that evil and disturbing night. I’m still trying to make since of the ending.. I’ll be watching it a second time

Now I wanna see it play out

It definitely nailed the feel of 'dream logic' and several motifs from my childhood nightmares: - toys moving on their own (for me this was always disturbing) - missing parents - blinding light from the TV - deformed faces/bodies (of me or my siblings) - searching for the monster effectively summons them (distractions like TV and toys can temporarily keep it at bay)

What makes it so sad is how utterly screwed the kids were no matter what. They were powerless.

As a kid whenever I’d leave my room at night to go to my parents room, there was always one spot I was scared of walking by. Sometimes I’d stare at it, because of how just dark it was, and I would convince myself I would see shapes and movements and would scare the shit out of myself. This movie is terrifying in the sense of reliving those moments in childhood when the dark was the scariest thing there was.

My dad's theory is that it was a metaphor for abuse. The high camera shots show how out of reach everything is, the closed off windows and doors show there is no escape. etc it was a good movie and made me feel that fear of being a kid in a dark house. I def felt the despair

Best description of experiencing this film is that it's the kinda film you watch thinking "Hmm, this isn't that scary at all!", and then go to bed later and realise you're about to have the worst night's sleep of your life.

Catching the last show at the theater really was an amazing coincidence bc after the movie ended the screen went black and the light didn’t come on, we sat there in the dark theater wondering if it was part of the show or not and it also made it seem the darkness from the movie broke the 4th wall into the theater

The director captured the feeling of being a child and afraid of the dark even when there’s nothing there.

I read some where that it’s about the kids dealing with their parents divorce, their toys being split between their parents houses, them not knowing the layout of the new houses so the doors and windows keep disappearing. I don’t really remember it all but it really made sense. Another one i saw was the kids were stuck in hell looping forever so it is really all up for interpretation I guess.

This drew out two primal fears for me. The fear felt as a child when the dark of your own room was enough to make you cry out for your mother. And the fear of a parent who loses sight of their child even for a moment. This one was too much for me.

I had severe, unexplained, night terrors as a child, and really bad sleep paralysis till my teens. I made the mistake of watching it alone, and got to about about a quarter of the way through before dipping, it felt like all my childhood sleep bullshit turned up to eleven. The hazy nightmare logic and uneasy atmosphere was just too similar to my remembered experience.

For me, this movie feels like having a nightmare, like, that disconnected logic that is so unsettling yet so real for those trapped in it. It reminded me of a nightmare I had as a child, the same feeling of dread and fear of what is lurking just outside of your door frame. For me, it was a nightmare of my dad running into my room, scared, begging me to close my eyes and not open it, no matter what I hear, and having to be perfectly still, while something walked into the room. I didn’t know what it was, it didn’t speak or made any noise, but I KNEW it was there, watching, just waiting for me to make a sound, waiting for me to be curious enough to just take a peek, it only needed a peek. It lurked there for what it felt like an eternity, I never saw it, never heard it, I didn’t know what it was or what it wanted. The nightmare ended soon as I woke up…I had that nightmare back when I was 8, I’m 25 now and I still remember that palpable fear.

I caught myself thinking there’s something in the dark but realizing there isn’t and then came to a conclusion that this movie makes you’re childhood fears comes back to you when you were in your room at night and that stool with clothes on it looked a lot like a dark figure sitting there watching you.

The “Kevin is in a coma and everything you see is he slipping away”theory is a good one….until you see the thing that’s in the house staring at you in the end then I’m like “Yea that house is haunted as F”.

I’m not gonna lie… even the little clip of the screaming when the blood shows up on the carpet sent chills through my body

My initial interpretation was that it was a nightmare Kevin was having and the red at the end was the insides of his eyelids when he woke up...... I like the coma theory as well.

That whole sense of walking around in your home at night, and barely being able to make things out. The feeling that everything is still the same, but feels "unfamiliar" and "different". Getting uneasy that you know you should be safe, but you don't feel safe... This movie brilliantly captures that feeling.

I didn't think it was supernatural at all, but about abuse and how the kids are becoming more and more isolated. The movie is so loosely defined that I think many things can be right. If the kids aren't being abused, the mother definitely is.

The director mentioned himself that this is a Hansel and Gretel story. I believe it's an entity that was after Kevin and followed him out of his dream and into the house because Kaylee mentions that he sleep walks. It's always telling them to 'go to sleep' and 'wake up' through out the whole movie and things go worse for the family after they fall asleep.

"Going to the toilet at 1am as a 5 year old: The Movie"

Just like the short film this is based on, I found this more sad than scary. I guess it was a little creepy at times but not likely to keep me up at night. My teenage daughter loved it and found it scary as hell, so I realize I am probably not the target audience. I appreciate what the director was going for though and the movie was effective in dredging up a recurring dream I’ve had since childhood. It’s been years since I had the dream where I’m walking through the house panicked because none of the lights or locks on the doors are working. P.S: I couldn’t sleep for days after seeing “The Blair Witch Project” back in my younger days so I definitely dig the “more is less” “let your mind fill in the blanks” type of horror.

I feel like a lot of the decisiveness of this film involves what the specific viewer is afraid of. Sure, the fear of the dark is strong in this one, but there's also something else. There's something that I personally called the "something is there trifecta". These are specifically: the fear of what is there, the fear of what isn't there, and lastly, what I believe is the most prevalent in this film, the fear of what COULD be there. this film has you searching around for long, dark shots straining your eyes to either hear if there's a whisper or look for something in the ever-present darkness. If you aren't very afraid of this stuff I could certainly see why you'd be bored out of your mind. Except for when the movie yells at you of course.

I was so sad throughout the whole movie. I just wanted to jump through the screen and save them the whole time. It was hard to watch for that reason but I really wanted to see how it ended.

What made it so creepy was the fact that the protagonists are innocent children. You want to protect them. This movie filled me with a feeling of horror and disgust.

The best theory of Skinamarink is that it focuses on the metaphorical experiences of a divorced family, which can cause abuse, lonliness, and unrequited fears that culminate in that being represented in the deterioration of the home, and the family slowly vanishing.

I loved this movie, it positively scared the shit out of me. Part of why it got me so bad is because of the child protagonists and their fate. The utter helplessness and futility is soul crushing. I have an almost 3 year old baby sister and the entire movie I kept imagining her in these scenarios and it just hurt my heart. So, yeah, good job.

One of my most memorable nightmares as a child, and I’ll add I am afraid of the dark, is when I was like 4. I got out of bed because I was thirsty and went into the kitchen. My mom was there folding clothes at the table and my stepdad was sitting down in a chair at the table. I was calling for them and they acted as if I wasn’t even there. I kept calling for my mom and then started crying because she wasn’t acknowledging me. Then I looked on the wall behind my stepdad and there was a face, just a face, coming through the wall laughing at me. The face continued laughing and says “they can’t hear you, they can’t see you and they don’t care about you.” I was thinking about watching this movie but I think it’s my literal nightmare. So I’ll pass 😭

I saw it in theaters and almost left in The first 15 minutes like he said, then I thought to myself you went to an abstract avant garde horror movie, you can't get frustrated because it's exactly that. It's stuck with me for a couple weeks and I think we'll see it's influence in the future

to be honest, my girlfriend and I were so tired for our first watch we had to turn it off after 20 mins but the next night we watched the full movie and it was genuinely the scariest movie i’ve ever seen. the vibe is extremely unsettling and as a kid i hated dark hallways and the old cartoon music and vibe has always creeped me out. i yelled in my dorm and almost got a noise complaint 😭😭

As someone who is afraid of the dark this movie TERRIFIED me and I am not ashamed to admit it lol. But when I watched it I had the theory that we are either seeing a family dissolve after the mother left like you said. Or it's some horrific nightmare of the father harming his family and they are navigating through death.

The reason I liked skinamarink is that it’s something different and I’m a big fan of analog horror. The movie made me uncomfortable while watching which a horror movie hasn’t done to me in a very long time

The fact the children just sort of accept the fact doors and windows are disappearing shows that it’s Kevin dreaming, we seem to just accept the strange stuff that happens in dreams

Called it. In his last video I commented on hoping he'd cover this movie. Again, it was like watching a 2 hour version of Samara's tape from The Ring.

This was 100 mins of torture for my husband & me. We spent the entire time yelling "WAKE UP!" at each other cause we were both nodding off.

So I did some research with the 572 number they give us for days passed and I found something really interesting. When you reverse the numbers (much like how things are looped, reversed/flipped) the number 275 spiritually means a loved one needs help and it seems like a large portion of this movie was geared toward trying to find their mom or dad. Just some food for thought

While being effective, I think that Skinamarink’s only issue is it’s length. As a fan of movies with over-length usually, I did realize that it’s slightly lengthy because it does not have a lot of plot. It is a nightmarish watch and best served all on your own with no lights on. But it takes some stamina to go through it.

I took the film as coded for a home invasion where the parents are taken away from the kids and killed. The scene where the dad says look under the bed twice proving there were no monsters, but the mother assuring her "someONE" is here before telling her to close eyes and being murdered. When kaylee keeps asking for parents he takes her eyes and mouth similar to duct tape, leaving him to "play" with kevin the most pliant victim.

This movie was definitely a visual replay of a childhood nightmare that I had when I was little. I’ve had so many horrifying experiences as a kid. Glad to finally be an adult haha. Thank you for the review !

this movie brought out a deep primal fear i havent felt in a long time, the idea of seeing things just not make sense, door disapearing, windows appearing out no nowhere, i've always had a fear of loseing my touch with reality and this relfected that fear at me heavily

I feel like the entire movie is just a nightmare both kids are having. There parents are probably going through a divorce, the kids don't understand and are scared and frustrated, it's causing Kevin to sleep walk which eventually leads to him falling and getting hurt, I don't think he's in a coma because that wouldn't make the time we spend with Kaylee make sense unless he's dreaming he's his sister which I guess can happen I've dreamt I was someone else before. With everything going on the house probably doesn't feel like a home anymore and the kids feel trapped there, that's why the windows disappear, and maybe the disappearing of the toilet symbolizes bed wetting? I know kids do then when stressed or scared. They're 4 and 5, their hurt, scared, and have no idea why their parents, especially their mom are acting so weird and this is what their minds have conjured up.

The director said the whole point of the movie is to be inside a child's nightmare. I imagine the one that fell on the stairs as mentioned and is now traumatized.

For years I was Kanye's biggest fan. The guy could put out scoop dee di poop scoop, woop di woop, scoop di poop and I would tell you it's worthy of a pulitzer. I still love his music, but I am no longer a blind defender of it. Talking to me during that time feels like talking to people who defend skinamarink.

Bruh, the lingering eyes of that toy phone and the disappearing blood was the freakiest shit Ive ever seen. Its the grungy look of the dark unknown, and the inability to be able to see whats really happening. Often times its less about what is thrown in your face that scares you, but what your brain thinks of based off what you can hear, and what you think you can see that is the creepiest thing. The eyes particularly freaked me out, thanks to a lucid dream I had of a disconnected pair of eyes and a big smile that was pressed against my face, my body feeling electrified and the taste of copper in my mouth. And when I looked it in the eyes, it made a buzzing noise, shooting back into the corner of my pitch black room. Ever since Ive never been able to sleep in the dark, and I need at least something to make light.

The main problem I have with this movie is that they never actually skined a marink

For anyone wondering, the song you're hearing in the back of your head is from The Sharon, Lois & Bram's Elephant Show. I've said it once and I'll say it again. It's so strange how old catchy jingals and songs from kid shows and commercials can be buried deep in one's head.

I think the creepy and tragic thing about this film is that the only 2 characters are only small children. If you've ever been left home alone and don't know where your family is as a child, that's what the film felt like to me. That unsettling feeling of being in danger in a place you're supposed to feel safe.

From my own reading of the movie; I feel like the entity is childlike itself as it toys with the children almost aimlessly much like they are doing while trapped there

Yeah this aesthetic is literally sleep paralysis. The muted hue and darkness seeping in and the strange sounds and the feeling of something just looming over you. But I agree that it's super great. Just went on too long.

Dammit, I keep seeing "Skidmark" when I see the title 😅

this film made half of the movie theater audience in my movie theater fall asleep.

I love watching a wall for 90 minutes

The cartoons in the film play a big part at pointing toward different themes so the second one about the dead bird being picked up by a group of other birds to me proves that Kevin is likely already dead and that the entity is torturing his spirit in an endless loop. He may have died from the fall or push down the stairs in the beginning even though the dad said he was fine. Whether it was neglect and the father didn't even take him to the hospital or something happened when he got home and he died suddenly as can happen with head injuries. The visions of his family may just be him trying to find comfort in his loved ones with memories but the entity distorting them, taking away any comfort. Or the family could also already be dead by entity. I don't think the entity is the mom or dad as he is asking for his parents in the end because he is scared. I do think the abuse theory and other trauma can still exist but more so as memories the entity uses against Kevin in its twisted game.

"How dark do you want me to film the movie?" "Dark. Real Dark. Like, leave the lens cap on"

I absolutely love this movie and I know that so many people will hate it and think it’s boring so I won’t bring it up 💀 It feels like someone remembering a bad/traumatic event they experienced as a child. Whether be an experience that they’re genuinely remembering and it’s just foggy and they just kind a remember the fear they had as a kid, or it be a nightmare version memory like they’re reliving it in their sleep, To me it felt like a metaphor for a child, watching their parents, lose them selves to an addiction, or some thing, and then watching as the abuse also becomes part of it

The fact that I'm scared AF by watching stills while you explain it, speaks volumes about this movie.

The movie felt very much like watching one of those analog horrors on youtube. To me it almost felt like a victim's pov of a Mandela Catalogue episode at times. Seemed like they were using some sort of subtle swirl effect with the grainy noise you see for those shots that linger on the darkness to help trick the mind into trying to recognize shapes within that darkness, which really added to that uncertainty of "do I see something there or are my eyes playing tricks with me?". Had no idea what was going on story-wise, but still thought the film was cool for the way it gets your mind to play tricks with your eyes and for the creepy moments. This definitely seems one of those movies where the more active your imagination is with darkness the scarier the movie will be to you (or vice versa). I'm looking forward to finding a video somewhere someday that breaks down all the subtle things shown to us that I missed.

So it's a movie-lenght nightmare. Very cool concept!

You know that feeling when you wake up late at night, and you swear you can see a dark shape in the corner of your room? There are those 1-2 seconds where your hair stands on end and your heart starts to pound, before you turn on the lights just to see a chair or a lamp. Those 1-2 seconds are where this movie lives. Except the lights never come on, and your eyes never adjust. A surreal fever dream that you should’ve forgotten.

It’s just a nightmare, it hits so many notes from my memories of them when I was a kid. Strange happenings, inability to do basic things (dial a phone, run away, etc.), mysterious entities, being trapped in scary loops, being alone in the dark, the list goes on. It’s a nightmare, it’s meaningless in all but the feeling felt I love it

This movie brought out the still very really fear of the dark I’ve had since infancy. It’s literally every one of my childhood fears about the dark becoming reality. My fear on this one is l at a visceral level for me….I can honestly say this TERRIFIED me.

i gave up in the first 5 minutes loool

I got shown Kyle’s Bitesized Nightmares a couple of years ago and instantly loved them, but I still haven’t watched the film bc the idea of one going feature-length feels like something I’ll need some time to give my undivided. I can picture it being a bit tedious if he wasn’t very cognizant of maintaining attention. I’m sure he’ll only get better at staying engaging throughout a full film going forward. He definitely has a unique aesthetic & ability to build atmosphere. His settings , props, and ambience put me in a very specific, twistedly nostalgic place.

It wasn’t perfect but it definitely scared me. I watched it in a mostly empty theater and the scene where Kevin was told to look under the bed terrified me. I really thought it was original and effective.

After my friends and I left the theater, obviously we went on for quite some time what the hell we just saw. My interpretation of it is that after seeing the blood spill at the end, the father murdered the mother and kids, and they're in purgatory. But that's just speculation. I'm not saying I'm correct or anything close.

I honestly don’t even know if I liked or didn’t like the movie, but it’s the first and only film I’ve ever seen that evoked this constant feeling of dread, anxiety, and despair. I think that’s pretty brilliant.

i just watched it. I took 3 ten minute power naps in under 2 hours. Groundbreaking

I liked the part when he said “What are we, some kind of Skinamarink Squad?”

"Skinamarinkidinkidink Skinamarinkidoo. I. Love. You. Oh my dayum. This is how bacon is supposed to be. The fries, they blend so perfectly. The cheese and meat, it's goin ham. Dayum. Dayum. DAYUM!"

You either loved or hated it! I enjoyed it a lot. I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on the movie!

This movie terrified me yet it was boring sometimes,the short film works way better;the fear is so f*king tangible

It's probably a good thing I didn't watch this movie. For many years when I was young, I had quite a strong fear that the dark hid something terrible just out of sight. I would feel most comfortable is laying on my back so I could see as much of my room as possible, and of course having my back to my bedroom door was something I never did. Sometimes it would get so bad that I had to have one of my grandparents sleep with me... I do not miss those troubled nights.

God, this film was boring.

I think this shows that some mediums don't transition well into other mediums. Analog horrors are great in short bursts over time. When you try to cram it all into a movie it doesn't seem to fit well. But, I am all for people to keep trying.

i think the most interesting aspect of movies like this is how extremely polarizing it is. personally, i found this film unbelievably terrifying and felt very personal with just how accurately it portrayed my childhood nightmares. i could barely even look at the stills from it in this video. it's hard for me to imagine how someone could be so bored that they left the theater entirely. i didn't even do that for morbius.

Learned about this through Wendigoon and now I'm just trying to make sense of it all. I really like the movie. A nice breather from modern horror in Hollywood

Before the age of 7 or 8 reality is fluid.

There are lots of possibilities. 1. Kevin sleepwalks, falls down the stairs, smacks his head. Dad and doctors consider it a bump on the head, nothing more, ignoring the concussion. Kevin slips into a coma after further problems…turns out he has a massive brain tumor that this bump just makes worse. A majority of the movie is Kaylee trying to speak to him while he’s out, since they’re close, he can imagine her with him. A lot of time passes, mom kills herself, and dad gives up and leaves, the strain on them both is too much, bills piling up, etc. The doors disappearing is because his brain is forgetting his home and where things are located, windows, doors, etc., the toilet isn’t needed, since he’s cathetered. Later, we hear Kaylee going with an unknown voice, this is the social worker taking her into foster care, how Kevin interprets it. Also put the knife in your eye is the surgery the doctors hope will save his life, again, how his brain interprets it. The voice is just what he hears around him in his own head. This explains why the adults are often muffled and distant, but Kaylee’s voice is almost sounding like she’s talking right in his ear, as a kid would. The surgery isn’t successful, and Kevin dies after 572 days in a comatose state. The rest is residual memories fading from his brain. Lending further to this is the TV playing cartoons, notably, the kid-fly trapped in a spiderweb while the parent-flies look on, unable to do anything but show fear. 2. The head knock was VERY damaging, forcing the parents to put him in an assisted living facility, this is all how his brain interprets things around him, most things above still apply, dad and mom are broken, mom kills herself, dad drinks himself into death or leaving. 572 days later, without his loving sister, he eventually breaks and goes completely insane, trapped in his own head. 3. Then there’s the abuse theory, not ruling it out, but not enough info to go on for a steady conclusion.

This movie made me feel fear i felt as a little kid and it somehow lingered with me for a while. I can see why people didn't like it but it certainly hit my nerves.

I remember research being done in the 70s about children's worst fears. This movie nailed them all, they did their research. It touched upon a particular horror of mine. When I was about 4 or 5 I used to wake up TERRIFIED and all I could do was creep silently through a dark house to the TV and put in a VHS of some shitty cartoons. It was just the glow of the TV, me sitting in front, and as far as I was concerned, everything else in every other direction was infinite terror

I’ve been waiting for someone to explain this one. Thanks, dude!!!

Skinamarinky dinky dink...I remember the Sharon, Lois, and Bram show plus the song, which Im sure most of us remember the song at least...and when I saw this title Skinamarink, I sighed. I'm only watching this because of Foundflix. At least I know I'll enjoy it through this way. 😃

This feels like an exact nightmare I’ve had. When I was little I would sleepwalk a lot and had almost constant night terrors and waking dreams.

Maybe the director assumed his childhood home was haunted by some kids and this was his way of filming a haunted house from their perspectives… slowly moving through an eternal changing veil of their former home, perhaps being remodeled through the years (hence the windows and doors shifting). They can’t perceive the real world and the real world can’t perceive them.

One thing I noticed is that it only really tortures the kids when they don't obey it. That's why Kevin got to live and it tells him "Go to sleep".

This isn't really a theory, but I think we've all had at least one nightmare that seemed to go on forever. This movie reminds me of that.

Why does everyone keep saying the windows AND DOORS disappeared. I kept seeing doors…

My theory is that it's a representation of the fear of being trapped into a timeless dream state, like a lucid dream, or sleep paralysis. This film maker has done other films about nightmares. I don't think this is much of a deviation. I think it could be something having to do with the head injury. The 578 days thing could also be a reference to the extreme timelessness of dreams.

The children's time with the entity reminds me of those episodes of Looney Toons where Daffy or Bugs are toyed with by an unseen animator. Like many, I had a childhood filled with moments of isolation and non-criminal neglect. I can certianly remember the feelings of powelessness and anxiety that started haunting me before I could even understand that's what I was feeling. Maybe the entity could be an extreme form of that specter? Like, that feeling of dread you can't name when you're a child going through Some Stuff.

Awww yeah my man bout to explain some shit. Can’t bring myself to watch it personally, but I’ve been enjoying the breakdowns. It’s like watching a movie that’s 20 minutes instead of actually watching a movie that should’ve been 20 minutes

I think it’s about the boy’s own limbo after death like his dad pushed him down the stair and now he’s stuck as a lost wandering soul in the place he died but his memories of the home are fading and “changing” after so much time and with him losing his memory he himself is fading away to non existence

what a coincidence i finished this movie a couple hours ago, really needed this 😭

The film grain crawling across the screen during the silence and tension of Kayley in her parents’ room made me feel like I was on an edible. It was dope. Film grain being almost a character rather than merely an aesthetic choice got points with more, whether that was intended or not