SPOOPYWEEN!! DAY 1 SKINAMARINK!!!

Day 1 Skinamarink

So I could’ve, should’ve, and really meant to push out the second part in my anthology horror series the Deep Sea, I did finish writing it, I do have it edited. I just need the damn cast.

But NO!

I decided to embark on a three month long quest of insanity. Starting us off right with our annual October month of horror. Is there a crafty theme this time?

HELL NO!

No forgotten treasures of the video store era.

No Box art so rad I bought the vhs off ebay for hundreds of dollars

No films I saw as a kid I should never had seen.

Nope. I am shocking you all and reviewing a bunch of recent horror film releases. Shocking I know. But I do watch them. I just don’t usually have much to say about them or I use them as background noise.

In fact the last time I reviewed a recent horror film I was brutally honest about how shit it was, and the director gave it a like.

I don’t honestly know how to read that one.

But the world needed to know. So here we are, on my quest to cover films released and picked at random I either haven’t seen.

Which is a vast majority of these titles.

And a handful of films I did see and want to talk about.

So lets get into it already. I don’t wanna crash midway through this and from what I have heard about this movie, it’ll either put me to sleep, or it will scare the jesus into my life. So we shall see no?

Prepare thyselves for a film I know absolutely fuck all about, but people are praising and hating.

I bring you day one of Shocktober

Skinamarink

Skinamarink a dink a dink

Skinamarink a do

Lets pray this movie doesn’t suck

If it does I blame you.

Of course no sooner after having said that the film opens with the IFCMidnight and I just….jesus.

When I was growing up, hardcore porn was free on satellite dishes which took up a large chunk of your yard. And one of the channels that played the weirdest shit but also had a welcome to the adult world decent amount of nudity, was IFC. Which was hilarious at the time, and still somewhat is.

Not so much now…

This film is…huh.

So its filmed with filters that are really touching on the artsy I wanna say early or mid 60’s, hell even late late 50’s. It’s just. Hm. It’s a choice.

Which they seem dedicated too. It’s like, I know what they’re going for. I think. I don’t like it. But I get it. It’s just one of those that, well. I can understand why people are split on this now. It’s experimental cinematography with high res sound used to tell a horror story of, something not there.

I’m just calling it as I see it and right now I am I want to say 90% sure there is nothing and this is a ‘the real terror is in your mind’ film.

Which I don’t really care for. Not because I can’t deal with high brow film, not because surreal isn’t my cup of tea. It’s that not many directors today really can ‘get it right’ And what is considered to be the high point of artistic horror now, is more of an ‘if it confuses you and you don’t get it, but your smart friends rave about it. You have to agree with them so you know you get it too’.

It makes sense.

Anyway this film is about a family. Kind of. It’s mostly about nothing. Or the idea of something. But we have Kevin. Kevin is our little bro we are going to likely watch get into all sorts of hijinks. He likes to play with legos and oversized recorders, which is cool in my book. He has a dad whom, for the most part is barely visible. In fact everyone in this is mostly just parts.

Like imagine the Muppet babies, and how any time the adult came into the room, all you saw were their feet. Same thing.

So we get to watch Kevin having fun playing with his toys, going to bed, waking up and sitting in the middle of the hallway, only to fall down the staircase and wake his dad up crying.

It took 15 minutes of film for these events to play out.

What was in those 15 minutes?

Random filtered shots of hallways, ceilings, doorways. Amplified noises of foot steps, muffled amplified dialog of Kevin calling to his dad, and a tv.

I stopped drinking about oh, well a few years ago now. I’m not saying this film is making me want to drink, but I am saying I stopped drinking. Also this movie is making me want to throw my head into the sand during 100F temp weather. Hard

Now, that isn’t to say, this is bad…really. It’s just me saying this is going to drag out, and on, and on, and it’s going to likely, likely god I hope. Have some moments that are worth it, thrown into 2 hours of build up and loud noises.

There’s no real clear narrative to give this, other than to sum it up just about how I feel the director wanted it and shot it. As this is a horror film told through kids, drawing you into your childhood and how scary things were for us. Shadow figures, unexplained noises, not understanding waking dreams etc.

But this is mixing that, with real terror in the form of an evil entity.

Which makes toilets and windows vanish at will. Makes chairs stand on the ceiling, and push kids down stairs for the lulz.

It’s one of those it’ll be less a play by play review, and more just, well thoughtful and what the fuck am I watching really. Otherwise you would have the equivalent of the old Family Guy joke where Brian the dog took a blind person to see The Blair Witch “Nothing happens, nothing happens, arguing about a map, nothing happens…and its over”

Again, not saying nothing happens here, but there is a lot of buildup you gotta get through until things start to slowly…I don’t want to say it but, make sense? Sort of?

So the film is setting up the family. We have mom and dad, who really don’t see much of, We have the kids Kevin and his older sis Kaylee. Much like Paranormal Activity this slow time is used to show us the house, the characters, and a bit of getting used to how this movie is going to look and sound. If you get over those first 15 minutes? Well you start to feel a bit rewarded.

Because that’s when we start noticing the vanishing appliances and balancing acts of furniture. Which only seem to really play out for the kids benefit. Which is usually pretty damn creepy in a movie. I love kid horror because its harder for them to convince the adults of what they see going on. This film is not taking that approach. It’s going full in on its evil entity.

I mean I don’t know about you but, chairs sitting upside down on the ceiling, vanishing toilets and windows. That’s interesting, sure. But when you start seeing barbie dolls naked. In praying positions hovering on the ceiling of your room at night, and you enter your parents bedroom only to find mom and dad sitting opposite each other in bed, telling you to look under the bed, how much they love you, and to close your eyes. All while moving unexplained around the bedroom without ever moving.

Well that’s when you start getting into the it’s okay to cry and piss yourself stages.

At least it would be a good start. Because pretty soon you’ll be in the shit your He-Man underwear once they get into mom and dads bedroom activities.

Folks. It only took 48 minutes. Halfway through this film. For somethings to finally happen. That made the investment begin to feel worthwhile.

And I applaud them for what they do, as it actually is pretty creepy. I still want to bang my head in hot sand, this is true. But I’m feeling less like I will punch this film, and a bit more like what I would expect. Which is, you better have a good pay off because you’re getting my attention, so I can put up with the artsy shit.

Mom and dads bedroom has made this time so far worthwhile, and I like that. It’s genuinely creepy and played out well. Filmmakers you have restored my faith in you.

So we follow young Kaylee to her parents bedroom. Thanks to the filters and super low light which looks as natural as humanly possible. I seriously mean that in a good way. She as I said finds her dad sitting up, feet on the ground on his side of the bed looking straight ahead. He is the one whispering at her to look under the bed. When she of course does? Its total darkness. Each time Kaylee turns from the bed, for anything. Something has changed. After having looked under the bed and telling her father she sees nothing. She looks over to find her mother sitting up now on the opposite side of the bed same as her father, looking outward feet on the ground. She tells Kaylee she loves her and Kevin and needs her to close her eyes. When she does, we hear close whispers beside her, and when she opens her eyes. Dad is no longer there, mom is still there however. But now we have a new party in the bedroom. The evil entity.

Which calls out to her and the mom repeats. Kaylee is politely told perhaps its time to get the fuck out of there, we can imagine just very nicely. And from a very dark open doorway. Where Kaylee says someone is. We begin to hear bone cracking. More specifically ‘snapping’ Followed my mom moaning. After the second longer bone snap, a dark hand suddenly leaps from the darkness and clings to the doorframe. Ending the scene and bringing us back downstairs to Kevin watching his cartoon in the family basement awaiting his sisters arrival.

That, was worth the wait.

Its one thing when you got kids witnessing creepy shit and not knowing how to deal with it. It’s another thing entirely when you start showing the parents are being manipulated by this entity, that just lets the kids know they’re fucked.

And I like it.

I won’t say I love it, because I want to see if this thing keeps it up or not. I learned to keep my hopes in check recently. Too many promising films turning to shit will do that.

But I really do like the slow build up and introduction of this presence, be it an evil entity or demon. And how the kids really are seemingly cut off from their folks in this horror.

All of these things are accumulating to the creation of an almost hell like prison. The vanishing of windows the absents of light. The sterile look of functioning rooms now completely empty and useless. The creeping terror. The kids are being tortured by this thing slowly but surely, and for some reason Kaylee is getting some of the worst of it.

She apparently didn’t care to share with her brother what she saw in their parents room. She didn’t tell her brother about the breaking bones, weird antics of their parents or the bloody hand coming from the darkness.

Maybe the entity got mad about this because they both aren’t shitting themselves, so it decided Kaylee has to be voted out of the house. In a very David Lynch fashion no less.

As the children sleep downstairs in this hellish dwelling they call home. The entity decided it wants to play with their legos. Much like my cousins when I was a kid. The entity saw the cool township that the kids built and decided ‘Im gonna build my own shit’. So it took all their toys, even Kaylees stuffed bunny.

What awesome thing did it build? Can’t tell you.

I can tell you however this thing likes putting shit on the walls. Thankfully for anyone who would have to clean that place, not literal shit. But legos, some of their buildings, and it also hung Kaylee’s stuffed puppy upside down. For reasons.

We soon hear, again. Hear, but don’t see. Kaylee being dragged somewhere. She begins to muffle out whimpers and speak. But oddly she sounds like she’s making the same damn noise over and over, even though the subtitles tell us thankfully that she is trying to call out for her bro bro, and saying things like “I am really scared”, and “I feel different”. What could she possibly mean? Well adolescences is an interesting time for all of us and we all go through changes as we grow into adulthood.

We begin to smell and need deodorant and showers more often, our palms sweat and sometimes our mouth and eyes vanish from our faces. It’s all part of the human experience.

HER GODDAMN EYES AND MOUTH ARE GONE!

For whatever reason, the entity has decided Kaylee was bad for not sharing the horrors she saw, or it just didn’t like her lego building skills. If my cousins thought my lego cabin was lame, they’d just crash it and build a huge ass mansion or sailboat with it, and I’d be deeply impressed while repressing traumatic bullying.

Those dickheads never used otherworld magic to take away my eyes and mouth. Thankfully.

So why Kaylee? Don’t know. What does Kevin think about all this? Well Kevin doesn’t know.

He has his juicebox, his cartoons, and dude is totally chillin. He does start calling out eventually for his sister, only for a very sinister and dark voice to tell him “Sleep”, and with that his body thuds to the ground and he’s a sleeping boy. Many parents would summon demons to learn this ability. Believe you me.

So realizing the demon entity has no Kaylee to play around with and torture anymore. Kevin zonked out till whenever, and the parents assumingly dead. Well, it’s time for a demon entity to play with legos obviously. Which it does.

No I’m not kidding. It’s just having a time, building uninterrupted with legos, reliving its childhood. Or. Demonhood. I don’t know. All we know is it’s happy for the moment.

That is until it gets bored and starts announcing to Kyle, or whoever cares to listen ‘I want to play!”

Surely

This can only go well, for Kyle.

I mean his sister is gone or sent to another void for all we know. So his choices in playmates are pretty limited.

Granted the last time he played with the entity he got pushed down some stairs. And hurt his head.

Also granted this same entity took away the poop and pee bowl forcing them to use buckets.

Also granted this entity put their furniture on the walls and ceiling and I assume broke the bones of their parents.

But yes

SURELY

This time, play time will go smoothly.

Hi. Welcome to Shocktober, you know what’s coming, and I am so happy to be reviewing again to say it.

OF COURSE IT DOESN’T GO SMOOTHLY!!

Playtime with this bastard goes just about as smoothly and fun as the video ‘One Man One Jar’

But hey Kevin is up for it, I mean shit he’s only 4 so yeah, dude would be up for some legos, Lincoln logs, GoBots, maybe watch some fortnite or Mr Beast videos.

Instead the Entity has a simple game to play.

Called, Stick the utility knife in your eye and see what happens.

Yep, that’s right. This kid. This bright smart child. Was just told “Shove the knife, in your eye”, and did it.

To no ones surprise, except Kevins. He begins to cry, and bleed, and scream. A lot. After jamming a sharp ass razor blade into his eye. We will safely assume he didn’t actually do it himself because he thought what could go wrong, but instead did it because the entity commanded and made him do it.

Though part of me actually wants it to be that Kevin was just having a moment and actually did shrug thinking “Okay I’ll shove this in my eye, what could go wrong.”, only to fuck around and find out.

Not gonna lie it still made me laugh how it happened. I know we’re supposed to be in shock. But I am laughing my ass off. Like what the fuck did you expect was gonna happen man? You stick a knife in your eye, your gonna bleed and blind yourself. Don’t fuck with demons man. Don’t listen to that shit. Get you some Jesus in your life. Or pray to a demon that can keep the other lesser demons in check. Least then it won’t fuck with you till you die and it feast on your soul.

For the record I am not actually saying you should get your kids involved in demonology and worship, I am just simply saying if you have a bully or a ghost giving you shit, it’s helpful having a demon in your corner that’s got your back.

But I digress.

So what is Kevin to do? He’s bleeding out his eye, he’s in horrible pain. His parents are..fuck knows where. His sister is traversing whatever dimension, and his cartoon is looping the same scene over and over of a dog watching a figure vanish and reappear.

Well thankfully the movie decides to let us know. While it has 30 minutes left for us.

We are shown blood on the door, and for once I will say, it’s a beautiful establishing shot. Not because of the blood on the door. But the fact if you look closely enough? Or you know, paid any attention to the camera this whole time. The film has been shot at the head level of the kids. To try and put you in there position and realize how out of reach most things are for them. Even doorhandles are a bit of a task, especially for a 4 year old here. But it’s even more of a task, when the doorknobs are no longer on the doors.

It's a nice visual touch and I’m glad for it. Mostly because for once they didn’t use the comical ‘bloop’ sound effect when they made the window and toilet vanish. We are simply shown a bloody door and the knife. Indicating Kevin tried exiting the room for help, and found the door now no longer available to him.

More and more it’s like watching someones personal hell played out. The house having started as a pretty wide and open place. Losing light, losing access to the outside world, closing in more and more, until you are confined to one room, which you will soon realize is likely going to be your tomb.

Does this mean the movie is winning me over? Not especially. It means something, but we will get into that at the end of the film.

Because for now, we have some good news! Kevin is no longer alone! I’m not just talking his bad demon friend who tells him to poke out his eyes with a utility knife. I’m talking about Kaylee!

Yeah she’s back!

Maybe. Sort of. I mean she’s parked in front of the blank tv screen listening to weird ass static music. She is also sitting a foot away from the television. So either she is receiving messages we cant hear, or she’s just…well we’ll let her be for now.

Kevin is the boy with a mission now. He’s in a room, with no doorknobs, no escape. No windows. No light, and a sister with no face.

Oh also he feels sick and his eye is bleeding.

Kevin is a smart kid, despite jabbing a utility knife in his eye. He has one possible escape here, and the boy is gonna use it. He hears a phone dial tone and he is calling up Pizza Hut.

No, he’s dialing 911.

Which surprisingly works, for a change.

There is a helpful lady on the other end and she is taking down his information. Which is pretty straight forward. “I hurt myself, I feel sick. No one is home. There are no doors”

All of this is good for him. Not so much the people who have to rescue him. But it is still progress. Which at this point as small and slow as that progress is, it matches the slow and small build up of the film so we can count it as a win.

That is until his end of the phone goes dead, and he drops it.

Oh well Kevin, you tried.

He gets points for that.

Help may or may not be on the way. All we know for sure, is that Kevin has a lot of time to himself, and the demon entity that enjoys torturing him. So why not chat with them? I mean what’s the worst that can happen at this point right?

What he stabs his other eye? Picks his nose?

Actually they just casually shoot the shit. Really they do. Kevin notices his sister hasn’t said a word and sees what happened to her, so he ask as kindly as possible, which is surprising given his predicament and mood. But he ask the demon, how you do this?

So evil demon entity shrugs and says “I can do anything bro, I can max out pokemon, beat roblox, take your sisters mouth away. It’s cool”

The demon tells him, well us rather. He took Kaylees mouth away. Because she said she wanted her parents. She didn’t want to be with that entity anymore and she was scared. So it took away her mouth to silence and punish her.

That is, pretty fucked up, but checks out. This demon isn’t fucking around and I give them props on that. Not because again the kids are in danger. It’s the fact they aren’t holding back. In other movies similar to this, where an entity latches onto kids. It usually keeps them from the horror it inflicts. Or uses subtle scares to put the kids in line. Films do that to get by without traumatizing the kids or being to mean. Sort of like how when you kill a dog in a film. They know you’ll hate them for it. So they won’t show it, just the sound. But when a film does show it? You remember it.

They are putting these kids in a very adult horror film situation and playing by the same rules never minding the age. They fuck around, they will find out. Painfully.

It’s refreshing to see and I like that they didn’t hold back on that.

So with a mouthless eyeless sister, one eye of his own, feeling sick and bleeding. Kevin decides to go for a walk with the demon buddy. On the ceiling.

Yes the ceiling.

We don’t ask questions until after the ride.

Well actually we have a lot of questions

A LOT.

There were some possibilities here with where they could be headed. But alas. We see Kevins view as he roams on the ceiling and comes to two closed doors. Next we know we are inside a room on the ceiling, and the light of that door is getting further and further away from us.

Kevin quietly and politely ask “Can we go back now?”, and receives the answer you’d expect. Which is nothing. Absolutely nothing. The only thing Kevin gets, is to hear the sound of animals, clawing, scraping, and the sounds of hell.

Which leads us to the first weird fakeout ending.

We go from that visual and audio journey of supposedly Kevins fate. To the end of a hallway. Covered with legos on the floor, and a crooked dollhouse. Which the camera slowly, and I do mean slowly. Pulls back from, and pulls back, and puuuulls back. Until the room is barely made out and looks like a dark, endless void of a hall.

Fade to black.

BUT NOT THE END!

Now we get the shot of, a small model house, with a creepy plane and slightly off painted black and white background, kind of. With cartoon music. Ah okay. So this was like Krampus. A house and family now the plaything of a malevolent demonic entity. Torturing endlessly. Okay cool. Fade to black.

BUT NO!!

This movie is becoming that one partner who thinks they will give you a blowjob and just stop midway through a couple times because they think that’ll edge you and make your release that much better. But all it’s doing is making you frustrated because you have to keep getting excited and close again, then wonder what the hells going on down there. Sure the effort is appreciated in the end once they tell you what they were doing, but you could’ve also just, you know. Picked an ending sooner. MAYBE!

To cap all of this off? We get one mystery box mystery, because fuck it at this point, who needs answers, lets just stack more dildos onto this jenga tower of dicks.

We get this message displayed

572 days

That’s it.

572 days since Kevin went missing?

Since the family was set upon by a demon?

Since the family emptied the toilet buckets?

Don’t know.

All I know is we get one cool shot, I would’ve actually.

No.

The artsy fartsy part of me would’ve actually been happy with.

We get what looks like a dimly lit scene of the basement, Kaylee staring off at the tv, a fallen lamp behind her, and near her the couch she slept on. But the longer the scene is on the screen, it begins to fade and subtly change. Slowly but surely. Kaylee begins to fade out until she begins looking less like her form, and more like a shadow on the wall, which turns into a spot on the wall, and eventually fades from existence.

It's honestly a very well done scene, a creepy scene, and it would make ‘sense’ for the end of the film. It’s like a representation from childhood of, what you think you see, what scares you, is honestly not there, it’s just what you thought you saw, but didn’t see. Kaylee is gone, we saw her clearly. But the more our ‘eyes’ adjust and we see things clearly. She was never there.

Seriously that’s beautiful and I love it.

But

We

Keep

Going

Why? Don’t know. But it’s a choice, and it feels like a meh one. Honestly a lot of this footage at the end plays off much differently than the rest of the film. It genuinely has this feeling of…

The best way to put it? It’s like the director ended the film and the last few minutes of the film as there are no credits, was them including the short film they first made, before making the full feature.

Now it’s not to say it’s not interesting. It just feels. Mostly unneeded. Again like with Kaylee in the room dissolving into never having been there, what we now get are a series of scenes which play on the eyes with only one scene really conveying a sense of what happened to the children in the film.

We have a very typical in horror film scene where Kevin is playing with his light, turning it off and on, and each time he turns it on, something is different. A door that was open now closes, and toward the end of this sequence when the light goes out we suddenly see two wide weird looking AND out of focus eyeballs. Meant to elicit that feeling of “Oooh here comes the jump scare when the light turns on”, and when the light turns on. It’s not a demon facing us. It’s a toy fun with a silly face.

Which rings loudly all of a sudden and some of the features change on it. Again bringing you back to that feeling as a child of being more scared what you ‘think’ is there versus what’s really there. It’s a fun bit, I like it, but again it just feels a bit unneeded at this point.

The only part that really felt it conveyed something back to the audience and had a place, was a simple scene showing the corner of a hallway. We hear Kevin crying. Suddenly he screams and a beast growls out and SPLAT. Blood. LOTS of blood paint the floor and wall.

It’s pretty disturbing and a nice touch, but then the footage rewinds itself, the blood vanishes. We hear children giggling. Then Kaylee screams and SPLAT. Same blood trails on the ground. Which again vanish as the scene plays out over, and over. Which again read for me as this IS hell. They are trapped in this endless loop of suffering. Trapped forever.

WHICH.

AGAIN is disturbing and fun.

But this mother trucker is still going!

The film finally ends on one last sequence. Which again.

I really liked. But felt like it should’ve been somewhere in the film earlier.

All this time through the movie, whenever we’ve seen a dark void of a room behind an open door. The camera lingers, creating an uncomfortable atmosphere and leaving us staring at it, with heavy filters. In such a way as to let our eyes roam over the pixelated and shifting dark tones of the room. Waiting to see something jump out at us. Waiting to see some sort of horrific form emerge. But it never does. That’s what they rely on a lot in the film.

But here now, at the end of all things. They finally decide to manipulate this and give you what your eyes kept looking for. And it’s one of the most creatively done, well executed shots in the film.

We have again, complete darkness But from the darkness. Very slowly a form begins to take shape. A face is outlined and we see it moving. Eventually it comes just a bit more into focus while remaining still hidden. But we can definitely make out its evil smile and bits of an outlined face. Meant to appear somewhat familiar, somewhat wicked. But always out of reach and discernable. It speaks and tells Kevin to sleep. Kevin ask who it is, and it seems to just smile at him without answering. Both times Kevin ask it. And with that. The film ends, and lets us KNOW this is the end by announcing it with a big ol’ title card. THE END

The end

We made it! We reached the films conclusion and holy hell I have some thoughts on this thing.

Was it the scariest thing ever? No. Far from it.

Was it a weak piece of unstructured shit that goes from solid to mud form? Absolutely not.

I liked it as an experience, but wished it’d been a film. If that makes sense.

A long time ago now, I watched The Lighthouse. I really liked it, a lot. My dad was curious about seeing it and knowing his taste in films, and my own. I told him this. It’s an interesting film. It’s got a good story. It’s just one of those that. If it played out like a film, instead of art. It’d be more enjoyable.

That made sense to him and he immediately got it.

Which again. Not at all shitting on that film. I loved a lot with The Lighthouse. The acting was amazing and the visuals were great. I just know if it was less about art and style. And more a traditional film. It would’ve been a different experience, and still a very enjoyable one.

Art is in the eye of the beholder, you can enjoy the complexity of a story and how its structured. The tale being woven in front of you and the artistic flair they use. It may not be entirely for you, but you can still ‘get it’ and enjoy it. It doesn’t mean you prefer it dumbed down. It doesn’t mean I’d rather see a gore fueled nightmare journey into hell versus what Skinamarink gave us. I liked it. I really did. I get why people found it boring, and I absolutely can get some people just losing their shit over it. I just hate when films like this come along and you get two crowds fighting which tend to me the deep ‘im an intellectual’ crowd versus ‘horror is scares and blood, NOT implied bullshit’ crowd. I hate it because when you have those types involved in a film. Especially a horror film. It tends to lead to arguments more over verses discussion. You have the smelling their own farts high cinefile telling you that you just didn’t get it and all its overt tones. That you probably expected something gory or enjoy marvel films. Then the other side throw back at you how they had trouble staying awake because NOTHING HAPPENED! A film about nothing is not a scary film. It’s boring.

I really was afraid this film would end up boring the hell out of me instead of into me. It definitely started that way. But again, as I said before. Once you get past those first 15-18 minutes of world building and scene setting. It takes off on an unprecedented road which I was fully here for.

There’s a lot to take away from this film and again, I can see why its popular for that. The movie leaves a lot up to the viewer to take away from it, their version of the story.

Was this a child in hell being endlessly tortured? If so why did they deserve this? Where they tricked and made to regret it?

There was mention at the beginning of the film when we first see Kevin playing with this entity, where he falls down some stairs and we hear the dad say he hurt his head. Was Kevin in a coma? And all of this was a nightmare he’s subjected to live through until he wakes from his coma? Just an endless bad dream of disjointed memories, images, vanishing things, and unexplained unseen evil things? I mean its all there in context. Being blinded in darkness, hearing voices without faces. Never SEEING the faces of his father, mother or sister. The voice he hears could be his own mind, or an entity there with him. Hell it could be the voice of doctors, nurses, people around him in his coma.

It also could just be the horror created in a childs mind trying to deal with the unexplained and creepy vastness of darkness and how a child sees it. Not knowing if you’re awake or not. The haze on film being that lovely sensation we adults oh so enjoy of just waking and waiting for the world to come into focus. Hiding the familiar and distorting it into some sort of nightmare.

That’s what the film set out to do, what a lot of those films set out to do. Give you questions more than answers. Which generally I don’t like either. Because I watch films. Movies. To be entertained. To tell a story, make sense, and be something memorable, without feeling pretentious or like you need a degree to understand it.

It’s art. You like it or you hate it, you find something about it that maybe others will also see, or just you will and it connects to you. It’s subjective and you get out of it what you take away from it. It wasn’t bad. This could have been worse. A LOT. Worse. Believe me on this.

Honestly the film really reminded me of another film with very similar tones. If you want to talk interpreting film art oooh boy get strapped in for this one.

A few years back I saw a film called Antrum. It was brought to my attention online as one of those, people kept talking about and it had a huge fake film story built around it. A film SO evil, so VILE. That theaters which showed it burned down. No copies remain of the original film just segments. BUT THIS is the complete film!

It’s presented like a documentary that eventually shows you this film which in the I want to say 60’s-70’s caused mass hysteria and panic in theaters leading to them being destroyed by audiences. So the film induces madness. Cool.

What you get is a film with two siblings, with a lot of lore and images on demons and devils tossed in with random weird images that were conjured together by two minds who wanted to put together what they thought a ‘Cursed Film’ would look like.

Again. It’s absolutely an experience. It tells a very odd story which by the end, you make more sense of and get a conclusion to the overall story on film, but also the subliminal and not so hidden images of evil.

It kept popping up for me, a lot while watching this movie. Because it had very similarly borrowed aspects. The too close to the microphone dialog. The filters and off blur from the film. Sequences rather than scenes playing out. It’s all very much in the same vein as Skinamarink. It was interesting and the way it was filmed felt ‘of the time’, and it worked. This feels like a somewhat moderner version of a different tale. But this film was kept, I wanna say…purposely timeless?

A lot of the legos and such, and cartoons the kids watch are very old. Which feels like it was done as well more so for the older audiences so we more easily pull ourself into their spots and dig what the films dishing out. I mean it really is yea. But its one of those, as my parents did with me, and my cousins now do with their kids. They all get the hand me down toys and especially vhs of yester year. In fact all of our Disney and old cartoon tapes went to my cousin and her two kids. Which then also got donated to their kids. There’s nothing to really date the film is what I’m getting at. The tv is old, the vhs is old. Their toys are fairly old. But we are never told a year, nothing. There’s nothing to even really hint at it. Which honestly not many films do anymore. So it’s a nice touch and hopefully will give the movie legs to keep itself going as time goes by.

What ages the film is the filtering and audio. But it’s a stylistic choice and like Antrum, its what gives the film its uneasy look and feel. It works for it.

The film isn’t one of my favorites of all time. But it was a fun, though at times mildly frustrating experience. The ending with its multiple site gag pay offs and one off bits seemed mildly indulgent and not really part of the overall story. Unless that chaos is being relayed to us as this is what Kevin has been living through for 572 days. But who knows? I wasn’t sure I’d end up liking it as much as I did, but I did. It’s a nice movie that like the Lighthouse. I enjoyed, but would’ve enjoyed if told differently. And was a fun experience of a film. Just not the best, or end all be all of horror. Seriously calm your tits people. It’s not the grand grimoire of horror. Neither was Midsommar but some of you were crapping yourselves over the amazing insane terror of that movie. How many of you are still talking about THAT masterpiece? Exactly. It wasn’t reinventing the wheel. It was just meh.

My point is don’t buy into the hype. You’ll often be disappointed, which I have been. A lot. But still keep an open mind and see these films. Because you never know if one might stick with you, and this one has that chance too. Will I watch it again? Not likely. Unless someone like my sister says she wanted to see it. Then I might watch it with her, or just wait to hear about her take on it really.

It just isn’t one of those things. But its still good and something to appreciate.

Seriously, its so rare someone has the balls to put kids through literal hell, so seeing that done how they did? Loved it. It added some tension and visceral dread to the film that is often missing from other horror. They went for it and it paid off. Going for it and doing what they did, holding children to the same horror rules as adults paid off and its what kept my interest in the film going. Because it really did let you know that no one was safe. This was evil doing what evil does and it wasn’t here to fuck around with legos.

For that I give them a lot of respect. If only more people could dare being that brave to just stick with a thing and not let up on it.

So yes. You should see the film at least once. Maybe not with a group of friends. But for sure on your own. Give it a go and see what you make of it. You cant own it unfortunately. It’s digital as fuck. Which is another argument and rant to get into at a different time.

But yes, experience the film. Love it or hate it, it should at the least be respected for what it set out to do, and did do. It has its short comings but what doesn’t.

Overall it’s a fun start to a month long horror filled 31 days. So until next time. If a disembodied voice tells you to stick a utility knife in your eye, maybe ask it “but why?” or burn the fucking house down the moment your kids tell you weird shit is going on. Better to be safe and insured versus endlessly suffering and having your bones broke. GOODNIGHT!