#after it ended the lady who sat beside me said 'what an aggressively bizarre film.' and i really couldn't agree with her more

[batemanofficial]

saw skinamarink ... not super enthused tbh but here's my review (spoilers under the cut)

first of all the child actors did a great job. they're not really ever fully on screen but you can definitely tell that the characters are scared, which is a lot harder than it looks when the audience can't see your face

the cinematography is cool, i liked that you can't really tell what's going on outside of the field of view, it really ramps up the horror

the last three jumpscares (if you've seen the film you know exactly which one's im talking about) are very effective, the buildup is very tense (the guy behind me in the theatre said 'absolutely fucking not' right before the bit with the phone) and the payoff is good

that said the rest of the jumpscares in the earlier parts of the film are less effective, they're kind of just loud noises for no reason which obv doesn't make for great payoff

you'll never hear me say this about any other film but i wish it was visually darker. and that there was less film grain. it was very obvious that it wasn't shot on film and that the grain came from a filter applied in post, and it was so grainy that it seemed like the camera was moving a lot of the time even when it wasn't

i guess that's part of the goal tho, i guess for disorientation's sake it worked but it was a little tiring at the end

the foley is bad. i'm sorry but it is. the sound they used for the kids walking doesn't sound like socks on carpet, it mostly just reminded me of the sound corduroy pants make when you walk? idk it kinda took me out of it

the rest of the audio mixing was also not so good. the dialogue was very muddy (again i suspect that's intentional but still it makes for a bit of a frustrating watch) but the sound fx were super loud, especially the jumpscares which again kinda took me out of it

the narrative was admittedly very sparse but it was very easy to follow. by like the 20 minute mark you know exactly what's going on and who's doing what (and to whom) so i appreciated that, because i went into it afraid that it was going to be deliberately opaque in terms of story but it wasn't

ok spoilers. you've been warned

the metaphor at play here is. not subtle and like i said that's great for clarity's sake, but it is very sad. this is not a feel good film, but the fact that the child abuse allegory is so prominent does make the last scare very sad, especially given the rewind/fast forward/repeat mechanic that's going on in the scene

i thought the fact that kaylee got her eyes and mouth "taken away" was handled well for the type of scare that it was, that had the potential to get very hammy but i thought it worked well in context

this is just Jaime's Theory Corner but imo that bit seemed to imply that the mom was taking away (or at least trying to take away) kaylee's ability to witness and talk about the abuse that kevin is facing, so i thought the whole "kaylee didn't do as she was told (i.e. stay quiet), so i took her mouth away" thing was effective

i thought the barbie jumpscare just didn't work. it would've been more effective imo if the jumpscare came from the barbie falling to the floor and making a loud thud (maybe even to foreshadow a body hitting the floor. idk) instead of just SCREECH for no real reason

i guess that might be part of the child abuse thing tho. since we're supposed to be seeing this through the kids' eyes i guess the confusing nature of the jumpscares could be meant to signify the fact that they don't know why their mom is doing this, it's just loud and disorienting and scary

also i didn't get the "572 days" intertitle at the end. what's that about

overall it's just kind of a bummer of a film honestly. it's very well done both technically and artistically, but it's just kinda sad. personally i like horror that you can walk away from feeling like it all paid off, but this just didn't feel like it had that release for me

i'd give it a 6/10 overall, if you're dying to watch it just pirate it or wait till it comes out on shudder on feb 1.