Skinamarink, the buzzy experimental horror movie now streaming on Shudder, has discovered something: If you punctuate your exceedingly quiet, mumbly film with one or two loud, piercing noises, you can make people jump! Like florals for spring, this is truly groundbreaking stuff.
Written and directed by Canadian filmmaker Kyle Edward Ball in his feature film debut, Skinamarink takes 100 minutes to explore a fairly simple concept: In 1995, two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their parents gone and discover that all the windows and doors in their house disappeared.
The extremely low-budget, experimental film premiered at Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal last summer, and, thanks to a few online leaks, gained word-of-mouth buzz on social media. It was released in theaters earlier this month via IFC Films, and now audiences can finally (legally) stream the movie at home thanks to an acquisition by Shudder.
But some of you might want to know what you’re getting into before hitting play. Read on to find out about the Skinamarink jump scares.
Does Skinamarink have jump scares?
It sure does! Though they are not employed often, Skinamarink features a few choice jump scares designed to send a jolt straight to your heart. (Warning: Stop reading this article now if you want to avoid Skinamarink spoilers.) Director Kyle Edward Ball is more interested in sound than visuals, at least when it comes to scaring his viewers. As analog horror, most of the film is dark and grainy—that cryptic “found footage” horror movie technique made popular by internet videos where you can’t really see what’s going on. You never see any of the actors’ faces. Instead, you hear the voices of 4-year-old Kevin (Lucas Paul) and his not-that-much-older sister Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault) as they attempt to navigate this terrifying situation.
Both Kevin and Kaylee are getting a bad feeling about the upstairs of their house, and avoid going up there. But, eventually, Kevin needs to use the bathroom. The first big jump scare comes while Kaylee is waiting in her room for Kevin to use the bathroom (now a bucket, as the toilet has disappeared). Kaylee slowly shines a flashlight around her room, and finds a naked doll stuck to the ceiling. Though previously there had been the soft murmur of cartoons in the bathroom, right now, it is totally silent—just the sounds of white noise from the microphone and Kaylee’s breathing. Then, suddenly—a bloodcurdling scream pierces the silence! The camera shudders and Kaylee drops the flashlight.
Wow! Silence, and then a really loud noise! Did it get you? It was Kaylee who screamed. It turns out Kevin spooked her when he came back from the bathroom. Kaylee screeches again, about 10 minutes later, when a mysterious hand grabs a doorframe.
Ball uses this same audio jump scare technique again later in the film, near the end of the movie. Kaylee has disappeared, and Kevin is all alone in the house. He manages to call 911, but after a brief conversation with the operator, he drops the phone. We barely hear that conversation—if not for the caption, it would be totally inaudible, it’s so quiet—so, chances are, you’ve turned your volume all the way up by this point. Then, after another few minutes of near-total silence, Kevin realizes the phone has turned into one of those Fisher Price toy Chatterbox phones.
Kevin accuses the mysterious monster in his house of transforming the phone. After about 20 more minutes of staticky silence, that toy phone rings at a piercingly loud volume. Hopefully, you weren’t wearing headphones like I was. (If you want to be prepared, the phone rings around the 1:32:50 timestamp mark.)
After you restart your heart, you’ll realize that all of these scares come simply from building suspense in the silence, rather than any sort of disturbing imagery. Hopefully, we’ve all learned something today about how to make people jump with a really loud noise.