Regardless of your thoughts on the movie, Skinamarink is a fascinating case study in independent filmmaking. The experimental horror effort leaked on the festival circuit and proceeded to spread online via word-of-mouth. The buzz resulted in a surprisingly successful theatrical release via IFC Midnight, which in turn helped to make it one of the most polarizing horror movies in recent memory.
Skinamarink has arrived on Blu-ray and DVD with a single special feature, but it’s the one I was hoping for: an audio commentary. Writer-director-editor Kyle Edward Ball and director of photography Jamie McRae casually discuss the making of the film
Here are seven things I learned from the Skinamarink Blu-ray commentary…
1. The film was shot in seven days in Ball’s childhood home for $15,000.
Production took place over the course of seven days, with eight hours or less of shooting each day. Pre-production and post-production, however, were much more time consuming.
Ball shot the film in his own childhood home in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The kitchen was largely avoided because it had been renovated, therefore it didn’t fit the 1995 setting. Some of the filmmaker’s childhood belongings and family photos appear in the movie.
Made on a budget of $15,000, Skinamarink went on to become IFC Midnight’s highest grossing domestic theatrical release with $2 million at the box office. Ball mentions that The Babadook still has the highest overall gross when including international numbers.
2. LEGOs and a hockey jersey are anachronistic.
The first shot after opening credit sequences features an Edmonton Oilers hockey jersey on the floor beside toys. It was the jersey Ball had as a kid but, but he notes that it’s anachronistic to the 1995 setting.
“There’s the Oilers jersey that’s a year out of date. They didn’t introduce the midnight blue until 1996.” The logo is intentionally not visible, but eagle-eyed viewers noticed.
An orange LEGO brick separator that appears in several shots is also anachronistic. While the brick separator was introduced in 1990, the orange redesign didn’t come into play until 2012.
Ball also points out glimpses of an Amelia Earhart LEGO set from 2021 and a nightlight that are out of date.
3. Only one on-location sound element made it into the movie.
The creek of a folding closet door opening is the only on-location audio in the entire movie. Because it was shot without audio equipment, the sound was sourced from the on-camera microphone.
“It’s surprisingly hard to find metal closet door opening. It was all like industrial metal closets and stuff.” Ball continues, “The other nightmare was footsteps. It’s a real pain to get footsteps to read, particularly little kid footsteps on carpet.”
Every other sound was added in post-production, most of it being stock sound effects along with some foley sound recorded by Ball.
4. The Shining and Twilight Zone: The Movie inspired key scenes.
The scene in which Kaylee sees her father in the bedroom was inspired by Danny going into Room 237 in The Shining.
“The scene that inspired this was the Room 237 scene from The Shining. And I think we did good. Even some people who don’t like the movie, they like this scene. ‘Cause, you know, it’s not just shots of the ceiling,” Ball laughs.
The reveal of Kaylee without eyes or a mouth was inspired by a similar shot from Joe Dante’s “It’s a Good Life” segment from Twilight Zone: The Movie. Incidentally, that segment features a clip from “Bimbo’s Initiation,” one of the 10 public domain cartoons that appears in Skinamarink.
Kyle also notes that the scene caused Lucas Paul, the child actor who plays Kevin, to run out of the theater at the premiere.
5. One shot differs in the international version.
The film has select subtitles automatically embedded on the screen, but international distribution required them to be removed. As a result, one shot features a different color grade in the international version. Ball explains:
“Sometimes when you take a file that you’ve transferred to a drive and put back and blah blah blah, things change ’cause you’re missing files or this is a different version of the program. All of the shots were fine except the ‘Kaylee says he was sleepwalking’ shot at the beginning. The color grading was different and I didn’t know how to replicate it, so the international version, there’s one shot in the movie that the color’s slightly different.”
6. Ball voices the 911 operator.
When Kevin calls 911, it’s Ball’s voice on the other end, although you’d be hard-pressed to recognize it.
“That’s my voice as the 911 operator. I put my voice through a processor to sound like a woman. I also got into character too. Like, I tried to just pretend I was a middle-aged woman who worked as a 911 operator and really sell it.” The dialogue is based on real 911 calls involving children.
“If anyone wants to know whether he actually called a 911 operator or it’s the monster, the answer is I won’t tell you because I don’t know,” Ball chuckles. “That’s a you problem, audience, not me!”
7. Characters only appear on screen for 10 minutes.
A common criticism lobbed at Skinamarink is that it’s just shots of ceilings, a point that Ball and McRae poke fun at throughout the Blu-ray commentary track. The director has gone so far as to time how much of the movie has people in the frame.
The result? 10 minutes and 15 seconds of the 100-minute runtime — a mere 1/10 of the movie — feature characters on screen.
Skinamarink is available now on Blu-ray and DVD via RLJE Films.
