I'm pretty sure I understand what the director is trying to do, and believe it or not, I respect him for it. A lot of the time, I was, indeed, thinking of my childhood nightmares and irrational fears, like many others have said they did. But it didn't scare me. Despite all the hype on Reddit and going in without expectations, it just didn't do much of anything for me.
I think it's partly because I KNOW those fears are irrational and I just can't put myself in the mindset of my inner child anymore, not to mention I'm well-attuned to the dark side of things, so it doesn't feel as threatening now. Another reason is because the "scary" moments in the movie are relegated to a few small jumpscares, and some moments where you THINK something bad is about to happen, but without the payoff. Lastly, I don't think the ultra-minimalistic approach is for me. While the unknown can definitely be scary when done right, I require identifiable traits to characters beyond just voices and footsteps to feel anything for them.
There's definitely parts that made me slightly unnerved, such as the disembodied voice - an entity or possibly the darkness itself - instructing one of the children to put a knife in their eye, with the sound of a child crying shortly afterwards. Unfortunately, the movie's too long for its own good. I watched it pretty late at night when I was tired and winding down, so that might have had something to do with me being less than impressed.
Like I said, I respect the director's effort. He's clearly trying to make minimalism scary, and assuming that he's not astroturfing it (I will say I'm a little suspicious that the movie started out with something over 4 stars only to get a 5.5 in like a week after I last checked), he seems to have succeeded with at least a few, and I genuinely admire that. I just don't think his style is for me. I checked out some of his short films, including Heck, which is sort of a prototype for Skinamarink, but didn't feel any actual dread. I still feel bad about checking it out early instead of waiting for a mass release in the US, so I'm willing to give it another try so that Kyle at least gets his money's worth from me watching it.
I think it's partly because I KNOW those fears are irrational and I just can't put myself in the mindset of my inner child anymore, not to mention I'm well-attuned to the dark side of things, so it doesn't feel as threatening now. Another reason is because the "scary" moments in the movie are relegated to a few small jumpscares, and some moments where you THINK something bad is about to happen, but without the payoff. Lastly, I don't think the ultra-minimalistic approach is for me. While the unknown can definitely be scary when done right, I require identifiable traits to characters beyond just voices and footsteps to feel anything for them.
There's definitely parts that made me slightly unnerved, such as the disembodied voice - an entity or possibly the darkness itself - instructing one of the children to put a knife in their eye, with the sound of a child crying shortly afterwards. Unfortunately, the movie's too long for its own good. I watched it pretty late at night when I was tired and winding down, so that might have had something to do with me being less than impressed.
Like I said, I respect the director's effort. He's clearly trying to make minimalism scary, and assuming that he's not astroturfing it (I will say I'm a little suspicious that the movie started out with something over 4 stars only to get a 5.5 in like a week after I last checked), he seems to have succeeded with at least a few, and I genuinely admire that. I just don't think his style is for me. I checked out some of his short films, including Heck, which is sort of a prototype for Skinamarink, but didn't feel any actual dread. I still feel bad about checking it out early instead of waiting for a mass release in the US, so I'm willing to give it another try so that Kyle at least gets his money's worth from me watching it.