Cambridge Dictionary defines a “fever dream” as “A very strange experience or situation, usually a bad one, that seems like a dream rather than like something that would really happen.” On dreams in general, Merriam-Webster defines a dream quite accurately for this film in one word: “A series of thoughts, images, or emotions occurring during sleep.” There’s that word, “images.” Combine the two definitions without resorting directly to a nightmare, and that’s exactly what “Skinamarink” has accomplished.
CineDump Rating: ★★★★★
Have you ever had a dream that was so unsettling because of its ambiguity that you can’t call it a nightmare, yet you never want to experience that dream again? “Skinamarink,” a modern lo-fi masterpiece by Kyle Edward Ball, forces you to watch that uncomfortable, unnamable trance of a dream again. If you’ve seen David Lynch’s “Eraserhead,” and it, well, messed with your head, here’s the modern version, albeit much more minimalist and experimental.
The film’s plot is as expected: odd, weird, uncanny, yet I wouldn’t compare it to a nightmare by definition. I’d more compare it to the aforementioned uncomfortable weird dreams we have. Two children wake to find all doors and windows have disappeared. Their parents, for the most part, are gone. The tube TV on the floor plays royalty-free old cartoons on repeat. What the absolute hell is happening? Then there’s a dreaded, droning deep voice. I’ll stop there.
What Ball has accomplished is something quite extraordinary. He took the age-old formula of “film the action and characters” and said a firm “Nope, I’m going to do the opposite.” The very minimal dialogue in the film is so quiet that we’re graced with subtitles. We never quite see the full characters: just a floor shot of their feet trickling across the frame, or a silhouette. Most shots are close-ups of toys, the corner of the ceiling that no one ever looks at, a vacant hallway, that flickering tube television; we see everything we shouldn’t, can’t see what we should, but the ethereal editing makes you sit and wait in unnerving anticipation.
The film is absolutely not for everyone. Many movie watchers have little patience. They want action and development right away. This film is not for them. This is for the patient, the audience that doesn’t mind sitting on the edge of their seat to await that dreaded ending. And to this critic, there’s nothing scarier than being forced to wait.
Jacob Scheer