Welcome to Day 22 and by all means what I think will be one of the most polarizing recommendations of this list. Today's pick is anything but conventional and it is the type of film that horror critics and fans will still be talking about decades after it's release.
Day 22 - Skinamarink
The most recent entry in the list is the one that I suspect will be the most polarizing. This either "love or hate" indie sensation rocked the festival circuit and late night screenings when it premiered this year. The premise is relatively simple - two kids wake up to discover that their father is missing and that their house is changing. That's it. What Skinamarink does that is so incredibly effective is that it takes that simple premise and just multiplies it x100 when it comes to the scare factor. Since the entire film is told through the perspective of the two kids, it is their experience that we're seeing and everything that we see is absolutely nightmarish. Shot in an unconventional style, on an incredibly low-budget and with Sony digital cameras, director Kyle Edward Ball uses camera framing that has static images of a telephone, a kid looking around the house, or a fan in a room but makes it utterly terrifying simply because of the visual presentation. Skinamarink doesn't adhere to any conventional three act structure, instead it is more of an experience that lets the viewer travel back to the mid 1990s and stay in this "nightmare" that the kids are going through. The visuals that Edward Ball and his team imagine are truly "nightmare fuel," especially after the film starts to lean more into the paranormal and into the disturbing nature of what this entity actually wants and desires. Edward Ball's film might not be for everyone, in fact it isn't for everyone considering that it received an incredibly mixed audience response this year, but if you're willing to be terrified and let go of any conventional storytelling; its an experience that will leave you haunted for a while. Skinamarink feels like a nightmare that one would have as a kid, so if you go in with that mindset, it is truly disturbing stuff and an incredibly promising debut from Edward Ball.
*All of the recommendations that we make can be found at the El Paso Public Library Catalog!
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