10 Recent Horror Movies That Broke All The Rules
2. Skinamarink (2023)
Rule Break: Who needs a plot when your nightmares finally have a language?
Easily one of the most divisive horror films of recent years - and that’s exactly the point - Skinamarink isn’t interested in telling you a story. It wants to trap you inside a memory you’re not sure you had, and leave you there. No jump scares. No killer. Just dread.
Set in a dimly lit house where two children wake up to find their father missing - and the doors, windows, and reality itself beginning to disappear - the film drifts through static shots of ceilings, shadows, old cartoons, and flickering lights. Dialogue is barely audible. Faces are rarely shown. It’s more like a haunted VHS tape than a conventional movie.
What makes it rule-breaking isn’t just its lo-fi aesthetic or glacial pacing, it’s the total abandonment of clarity. It operates entirely on vibe. You don’t watch Skinamarink so much as you sink into it, like slipping into sleep paralysis. For some viewers, it’s nonsense. For others, it’s the purest rendering of childhood fear ever put to film.
It feels like being four years old again, calling out in the dark… and no one comes.