10 Terrible Movies That Tricked You Into Thinking They're Good
6. Skinamarink
Skinamarink is unquestionably the year's biggest indie horror sensation so far - an experimental horror film produced for just $15,000 by filmmaker Kyle Edward Ball, which amid positive word-of-mouth from festival screenings and a pirated copy of the film leaking online, has grossed more than $2 million.
Skinamarink is set entirely inside a house as two young children wake up in the middle of the night, unable to find their father as the doors and windows in their home start vanishing.
The film is expanded from Ball's 29-minute 2020 short film Heck, and while it's certainly great to see a low-budget filmmaker enjoying surprise commercial success, Skinamarink is yet another example of an artsy horror movie hyped to the heavens by industry tastemakers, but receiving a far more hostile response from general audiences.
As atmospheric as Skinamarink is, it's ultimately an intriguing half-hour concept dragged out to 100 excruciating, stamina-testing minutes, as Ball struggles to populate the extended runtime with much of interest.
It is a film that benefitted immensely from viral marketing and the much-stated claim that it was something truly different for the horror genre, enough that nobody really wanted to seem like a philistine by just admitting that it's basically a boring slog.