There’s a shorter version of this film that would be amazing…as it is, the low-budget result from Kyle Edward Ball’s freshman outing plays out like a bad edition of Five Nights at Freddy’s.
The premise is fairly simple: two kids are having trouble sleeping (Kevin in particular is sleepwalking) while an malevolent entity terrorizes their parents, changes or deletes the doors and windows of their house, and continues to tempt and persuade them to join in its activities. Now if that premise sounds amazing to you, you’ll be massively disappointed that the film has little desire to actually explore that rich concept, at least not narratively.
Credit: Mutiny Pictures, ERO Picture Company
The film does attempt to explore that idea with a nauseating blend of Dutch camera angles, incredibly tight shots around the house, and clever moments of shadow, sounds, and excellent prop work. However those same camera angles, which are possibly meant to represent a number of vantage points, can frustrate and piss off the viewer. What’s worse is that any particular angle may stay on screen for an excruciatingly long time which reminded me of another film that employed similar tactics…
It’s almost like Ball watched the worst parts of Memoria and attempted to create a lo-if horror version that absolutely no one asked for (To this credit, he’s discussed long takes from other movies like Black Christmas, but the pacing here is completely different). It’s mercifully shorter than that “critical” darling but still runs too long in many places.
Shot using a consumer digital camera, the shots are filtered through a film grain that’s reminiscent of the late 80s and early 90s low-budget horror films. I ought to love this, but it becomes a nuisance, mainly used to obscure the paper thin plot or deficit of well-crafted scenes. That doesn’t mean that there are no memorable moments or standouts. There are a few key examples of clever prop design, when the kid’s toys start to slide onto the wall, various parts of the house disappear and reappear, and more. Those tend to be the strongest moments when the film isn’t afraid to actually show you something.
Credit: Mutiny Pictures, ERO Picture Company
For a nearly two hour runtime, there’s a surprisingly low number of jump scares but when they arrive, they are quite predictable. Recent horror films like M3GAN, Pearl, and Smile have shown remarkable restraint with the jump scare and when used, they were pretty effective. Technically, the ones here will scare you. However, they are so painfully long and drawn out that you end up forgetting that you sussed out the jump scare and are promptly shocked by the abrupt image shift or scene change.
Conclusion
With January surprise M3GAN doing well in theaters, I was hoping I could report two amazing horror films to kick off the year. Instead, M3GAN will shine alone while the admittedly impressive box office of Skinamarink will mask just how painful of an experience the actual film was.