Skinamarink

The point of an experiment is to prove a thesis. The point of a horror film is to produce a visceral emotional response: fear. So what's in the intersection that Skinamarink, the experimental horror from first-time director Kyle Edward Ball, infests?

The name will probably elicit an instinctual response in Canadians of a certain age who grew up on kids variety show Skinamarink TV, and Ball's work is intended to key into the feelings of being in the show's preteen audience. The origins of the film lie in his long-running series of short films, Bitesized Nightmares, in which he re-created nightmares recounted to him by people – dark dreams that they had specifically when they were 8 years old. Across the 35 installments, running around two to six minutes each, Ball refined his style from minimalist to abstract, and finally pushed the concepts together into Heck, a 29-minute drama about a child sealed into his home by unknown forces.

Skinamarink is basically Heck extended and yet simplified. In the short, Ball had already refined his now-signature obtuseness and abstraction, but played with form and presentation, color palettes and volume. By contrast, the feature feels like it was captured on a series of artfully positioned nanny cams, and the dominant color is a muddy, grainy blue. The conceit is almost identical, only this time it's two children, scarcely seen and barely heard: 6-year-old Kaylee (Tetreault) and 4-year-old Kevin (Paul), who find that their parents have suddenly disappeared, as have all the windows and external doors, and they are left to fend for themselves against an unseen force that whispers malice. Repeat for 100 minutes.

Less a story than a mood, focusing on the environment rather than its residents, Skinamarink owes more to avant-garde visualists like Stan Brakhage than Sam Raimi, a mishmash of Creepypasta aesthetics captured in a cerulean-and-violet haze marred by carefully inserted scratches, and borderline inaudible ASMR rumblings complemented by hisses and pops. For 100 minutes.

Is that length an advantage or a failure compared to Heck's comparative brevity? Arguably, it gives Ball more time to create subtle thematic vibrations, build up dreamlike symbolism and resonances through recurrent images like discarded Legos and looping, out-of-copyright cartoons. Yet it's also an eye-straining act of endurance, so if you love 30-second underlit Dutch angles of empty corners, do I have the film for you. The pat defense is that Skinamarink is not for conventional horror audiences, and that's obvious, but at the same time it feels overextended as a conceptual piece. It's OK to finish an experiment once it has proven its point, and that's a lesson that Skinamarink teaches by accident.