Skinamarink Explained - A Forgotten Nightmare

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I absolutely adore the detail of Kevin not knowing exactly what to do to comfort his sister so he thinks about what makes him happy and gets her juice.

the line "can we watch something happy?" made me so incredibly sad, because it felt more like a sign that he has given up and felt exhausted by the constant dread that they both faced. it sounds like something someone would say when they're at the brink of giving up everything entirely and just want a sliver of hope, even the tiniest bit, to feel something.

The part that really gets me is whenever the blood keeps splattering into the carpet. Seeing that a child is subjected to endless torture, and the one thing that she utters while we see her go through this is “mommy”. That just broke my heart in a way that no other horror movie has. Seeing a child go through so much pain and fear, and seeing her beg for one of the few people that made her feel safe is just so utterly terrifying.

Walking around your house in the dark as a kid is the most uncomfortable thing to do. You know it's your house, but you don't at the same time.

I really felt like this was about child abuse. Dad's gone. Doors gone. Then toilets gone. But first the phone call. The head injury. Kevin keeps "hurting himself" the eye. And also how the voice is like a guardian but also a tormentor when the toilet disappeared it really solidified this in my head because of horror stories where kids are abused and kept from using facilities. And locked away for let's say....572 days.

Reminds me of that one Jack Stauber lyric from Nurpo:
“He speaks of what adults can’t remember and children haven’t the words to describe.”
You can never really remember how terrified you were as a child sometimes. At least not truly.

As someone who works at a movie theater, let me just say that not a single person who has seen the movie has walked out happy

the fact that you messaged the creator to ask if it was okay is so wholesome

i watched skinamarink with subtitles, and i think the implication is that there are many instances of kaylee and kevin attempting to turn the lights on, but they no longer work. specifically in the kitchen at one point, you can hear the light switch clicking repeatedly, and nothing happens. i think it was the upstairs lights/staircase lights that first stopped working, which explains the flashlights.

As much as it’s hard to see kids in a horror situation like this, which is fictional. Imagine the horror of the children living in reality with such awful abuse. A movie may be hard to watch, but it gives us a fraction of the feeling child survivors have experienced in reality. That’s what terrifies me the most.

I was not abused or neglected as a child and I had gruesome, horrifying nightmares (even involving family members, like in this movie). Kids have some seriously freaky dreams; I think their fear manifests way differently in their dreams than it does for adults.

This is the first horror video in a LONG time that made me actually feel tense and scared. I’m in my 20s and haven’t been this frightened by something

As soon as I finished watching this movie I immediately knew that
A. It's one of the best original concepts for a horror movie in a very long time
and B. So, so many people are going to HATE this movie and it's going to get dragged so hard online
Say what you will about Skinamarink, but it is a gosh dang MASTER CLASS in "Show Don't Tell". Just like you used to do as a kid alone at night in your dark bedroom unable to sleep, watching all the dark corners and inside your closet, you let your imagination fill in the gaps. What a genius move by a genius director! And on a budget of 15k no less!

I did skip ahead and with that in mind the scariest part for me was when the dad asked Kaylee to look under the bed
There's nothing worse than a parent who is both someone you love but also someone you are compelled to obey ordering you to do something frightening for seemingly no reason

I think this is representative of an abusive and manipulative mother. She has the dad trapped emotionally, so he nor the kids can leave. She tries to keep them loyal by telling them she and their father loves them, but in fact she takes out her anger on the kids.
In these children's minds the mother is a "monster". Kaylee doesn't want to talk about their mother and has clearly understood how horrible their mother is, while Kevin still thinks she'll stop.

To me, I feel like the mother became a drug addict or an alcoholic and everything happening in the film was a representation of the mothers addiction slowly destroying the entire family from the inside out. The kids don't understand addiction, to them, they just see their mom becoming something else, something scary.

I love the way the "monster" is depicted because when I was little I wasn't scared of "boogyman" or clowns or ghosts or anything like that. But the fear was still there. Especially when I couldn't sleep.

I used to be terrified of opening doors where I knew people were behind them. I still am to a degree, but with a lot of therapy it has become easier. It was instilled to me as a child that once my parents entered their room at night, no one was to disturb them or the consequences would be dire. As you can guess, this was not a happy family. We also lived in a house crawling with spiders due to my father's rubbermaid stacks and extreme dislike of chemicals. I don't think I will ever be able to explain the sheer terror of knowing there's a black widow in your room, on your bed, on you, and knowing the people who are suppose to protect you would do far worse than it would. The image of the dark silhouette of the door knob as my hand trembles in front of the wood, far too scared to knock... it will never leave me. Of a place that's suppose to be safe, that the people who are suppose to be protectors, are instead akin to the Boogeyman in the closet. Some nights I must of spent hours in front of that door, paralyzed almost. I remember hearing fights behind that door, of long bouts of screaming and crying, and the overwhelming fear that I was stuck there forever. 18 years is a very long time for a child. When I turned 19 and still found myself caged, the kind of despair I felt was... all consuming. Considering the kind of control and forced dependency that sort of father has, the fact that I got out at all is nothing short of a miracle. This movie made me cry, because I remembered that feeling. I felt seen and that I wasn't alone in that sort of terror. I used to look up to see if anyone else had the same sort of phobia I do and never did find another, so this movie kind of puts something to rest in me. It's not the same, but it captures a lot of the roots behind such a strange phobia. Maybe one day I'll make a short film about the specifics, about the opportunities I've missed due to that residual terror. Anyway, great video, although I am a bit late to the party.

The concept of innocent children being trapped in an infinite loop of torture because of a parent's mistake is impossibly upsetting. Even worse when you realize it can very easily be seen as a number of real life allegories.

There is nothing that could've broken my heart more, and yet still filled me with weird hope, than Kevin saying "Can we watch something happy?"

29:45 I had night terrors as a kid, and they almost always involved me "waking up" from a nightmare in my room but my room felt fundamentally different and fundamentally _wrong._ That moment of thinking I'd woken up from a bad dream, thinking I was awake in my room but my room wasn't right, _that_ was the terror.

It really encapsulates how helpless you feel as a child where you don’t understand what’s happening, you mostly “do as you’re told” even if you don’t know the person directing you, you can’t reach things and you don’t know how to use things, you don’t know the severity of situations, I mean, I think it perfectly captures it

My very half baked theory is that maybe it's about post-partum depression and the abuse/neglect/abandonment that comes from it. Post-partum depression can be a terrifying thing, especially when psychosis is involved, and could possibly explain some things in this movie.
Anyway, I haven't even seen Skinamarink. I came to this conclusion by watching this video! Let me know what you guys think!

i remember being terrified of something getting into my room and my parents not being able to hear my screams if something happened so i would purposely keep my door open as much as possible. my mom would see this and her thought would be "i dont want to wake her up so i should close the door" but whenever i woke up with a closed door it would give me the idea of "my parents dont want to be bothered by my screams" and this whole thing affected my relationship with my parents for 10+ years. we are good now tho but it was a bumpy road indeed. transparency on both sides could change so much..

A trailer trash couple moved into the apartment beneath me for about eight months. They had two young boys and a newborn baby. They where constantly yelling, screaming at their kids, threatening to beat them, etc. Me and my neighbor reported them to CPS multiple times and nothing happened. Eventually the landlord told them they needed to move out because they had trashed the place. There where holes in the walls/doors, mountains of trash piled up everywhere, tons of bugs and roaches. I think about those three young kids all the time. Hell is real, and it's all around us. Its a place that the most vulnerable people in our world know all too well, they are trapped in it every day, and even though they live in the same physical space we do, they can't escape it.

As someone who grew up with child abuse, this definitely invokes that feeling of fear I had. I'm actually crying a little

Tbh, as someone with severe childhood trauma caused by my mother, I relate to the narrative of Skinamarink on a core level. My mother would scare me at night like this, try to silence my crying with threats, and prevent me from getting out through the windows or doors. I'd ask my sister to watch something happy just to escape the situation. To me, this movie makes sense a lot.

any horror work that preys on our natural fear can't help but get under your skin. that's why i love analogue horror, it captures the fear of the unknown and the ordinary better than any other horror medium, and skinamarink might be the best example of this

Usually I don't like horror that targets children, for it always seems needlessly cruel and exploitive, but when it's done with the intention of showing fear and terror that only the perspective of someone so young, innocent, and ignorant can have, that's when it works better.

Me and my friend watched this in an old amc, we were the only ones there. After we finished the movie, we joked that we'd been transported into another dimension, but it really did kinda feel that way. Plus we live in Indiana, and so the drive home in the dark with the strange urban-suburban-country layouts definitely didn't help.

This movie isn’t for everyone, but I found it to be the perfect visual representation for what it’s like to have a nightmare as a child. You are alone. Helpless. And it feels like you’ll never leave. It’s incredible.

Oddly reminds of when I was kidnapped at age 13 and forced to be a child sex worker while also being loaded up with a bunch of drugs it reminds of the visions I had when they would load me up on drugs. I'm better now but this perfectly shows trauma through a child's eyes

I like to think that the entity, bored after all the torture, let him go, and the door and face at the end were partially meant to symbolize what Kevin is left with: an empty history, and a future he must walk into with nothing but the trauma and pain he experienced in that house

I figured the mom had died before the movie starts. It seemed like the dad was taking care of both kids by himself. The line 'i dont want to talk about mom' reminds me of a young kid unable to process their mother is gone

I’m in my mid 20s and I have watched a lot of horror in the past 10-15 years. Not a lot of horror movies actually scare me at this point. But then I come across creators like Kyle and you can just tell that this is someone who is passionate about the art of movies, visual storytelling and horror. It is a rare find and I admire the work 🎉

I’ve written about this recurring nightmare that I had as a child but the windows didn’t actually disappear, I would half wake up in random trap houses with one my parents having dragged me along with them to get their fix after giving me “medicine” to make me sleep. So the windows were boarded up in said trap houses, toilets were missing, there wasn’t electricity, etc. My first memory of this was at age 4. I caught on to what was going on at age 6 and then I’d usually get left home alone with my baby brother. I made his bottles from the age of 6 so he’d stop crying and I changed his diaper, clothing and gave us a bath every few days. Sorry for over sharing

An interesting detail is when Kevin tries to call the police, but the monster turns it into a play telephone. It’s very reminiscent of being in an abusive household and being silenced by new, shiny things.

I grew up with a mother who had severe mental health issues + alcoholism, and the moments of "can we watch something happy" or distracting your sibling by playing with toys or even simply having your parent tell you they love you before something HORRIBLE happens hits really close to home. this movie looks fantastic and very well done.
EDIT: wanted to add a bit about the phone. a lot of times, CPS can only do so much in abuse situations. seeing the phone go from a phone to a children's toy and then back to a demon definitely shows how not only can the phone, a source of protection, can be made absolutely useless, but also can be used against you--I have no doubt that calling the police probably had severe repercussions for him.

I feel like addiction plays some part in the sinister nature of the creature/entity. The looping being a recurring theme and addiction being a constant cycle would make sense. Maybe the mother/creature she becomes was a result of an addiction. This could easily bleed into the abusive and neglectful themes that show up as well. This film could be the result of a woman who tore her family apart and the demons she created in doing so.

This movie feels like hallucinations you would have at age 7-4 at a middle of the night. Your creativity is so high you can imagine anything and it can fear you, so you cope with the light of the television and toys. Truly a underrated masterpiece.
Scared the living hell out of me.
Felt like all of my fears combined into one in one movie.

I interpreted the ending of the entity showing itself as a response to Kevin asking to watch something happy, like a statement that it was feeling great joy from toying with him like this. Left a sick feeling in my gut :')

when u watch the movie through the perspective of kids trapped in an abusive household with drug addicted parents it becomes more depressing that scary

When it’s happening to adults it’s scary. When it’s happening to kids it’s heart breaking.

The idea that someone who (in their mind) loves you can still with their actions, through accident or intent, (literally in the case of this film, figuratively in real life) trap you in an endless cycle of torture is just about the only subject matter in horror that can truly frighten me.

The fact that no one can help these children is going to make me cry
Edit: I am crying

Watching this by myself in the dark was one of the most intense, blistering horror experiences I've ever had

as a kid I used to be convinced that if I didn't hide under the covers when I went to bed, then the grim reaper or some kind of undead ghoul would come out of my closet and kill me. this is definitely reawakening that fear lol. Bravo to everyone who made this film

I’ve never been in a theater so dead silent as when I saw this film. The tension was insane, I felt like everyone in the room was holding their breath

My interpretation of this movie is that of a mother being afflicted by post-partum depression and post-partum psychosis, slowly becoming abusive. Kevin's mind making sense of the trauma and abuse by imagining his mother as a literal monster. The windows and doors disappearing could be the mom locking the doors and windows to prevent them from escaping.

I love the little detail with Kevin bringing his sister the juice... It just feels so authentic and absolutely like something I would've done for someone when I was little.

as you were going through the details initially, it made me think the kid fell down the stairs, hit his head and went into a coma(trapped no windows no doors the first thing to go). the husband was there(trying to console the wife on the phone in the hospital saying it might not be that bad since he didn't need stitches), which also lend to the idea that the father last so long because the interactions with the father were much more recent, likewise with his sister. all this while he slowly fades away over 527 days. the brain damage causing things to slowly disappear. and him retreating to what he finds safe like the tv and his sister. it reads of almost any trope where someone is caught in their mind unable to wake only this time it's from a child's perspective. the mind will try to keep you in a safe place, but sooner or later inconsistencies pop up and that from a child's view it's harder to rationalize. So it plays out in instinctive fears.

This movie reminded me of how I felt about bedtime and the dark.
When I was 8, I had a classmate who was checking out a zombie book with hyperrealistic imagery, which slowly disturbed me the more I looked at it. Eventually, I had asked this classmate to turn the cover away from me and he did, until a friend snatched it and began chasing me with it. Well, as you'd expect, I had a nightmare that night from the scary imagery, but I hallucinate in the pitch black after nightmares and this was before we had a nightlight in my brother's and I's shared room. I woke up to the pitch black in my bed, but then I saw it, slowly fading into sight, was a blurry face that the more I focused on, the more I could see the detail. It got closer, and closer. I tried waking up my little brother but he didn't budge, still very asleep. I started to hyperventilate, crying as the undead, warped face remained right infront of mine no matter where I looked. I tried calling for my mom and stepdad, but no one answered. I tried to hide my face into the pillows, something that usually worked, but I almost felt it's presence. Eventually, I fainted from fear.
Every night until I was 12 years old, I never felt safe in my room at night, I always felt watched, would always face my wall, tensed up until my entire body ached before I gotten the courage to look into my dark room, and when I recognized the light from under my bedroom door, I booked it out and would hide in the bathroom for hours. At 12 years old, my bio father gave us a night light (Because our mom and stepdad refused to get one) and I hadn't had an issue since.

As a kid some nights I'd hear some noise in the house and just, freeze, as if any sound or movement would alert it to my presence and that'd be the end of me. I couldn't tell you what that "it" was, I just knew my life depended on it not finding me.
Watching this movie put me back in that headspace. I was frozen the entire time.

In my honest opinion, feeling that you're not safe in a place where you're supposed to feel safe and secure is one of the worst feelings that you could experience. Home is a place where you're supposed to feel as if nothing can harm you, but if you do, then something is horribly- *horribly* wrong.

This movie hits completely different when you grew up in not just an abusive household, but a spiritually abusive one at that. Growing up with occult-like themes and being conditioned to think demonic beings are all around you, this movie invoked a completely different kind of terror in me and brought me back to when I was a child, only the nightmares were real. Absolutely terrifying from the deepest parts of my subconscious.

I grew up in a extremely broken home with my sister thats a few year older than me, this captured the horror and trauma of neglect and being forgotten. I cannot tell you how much this movie put me back into my past. This movie was literally my childhood

i’m an absolute horror junkie and nothing turns me away, but this film genuinely disturbed me. the way it perfectly conveys child abuse and childhood trauma and the feeling of being alone and trapped without actually showing it outright scares me shitless. this movie is INCREDIBLE

I love with this movie there are so many theories and all of them can equally be true. Art is subjective so everyone can come to their own conclusions. For me personally, I came from a home with an abusive father, I see this as an abusive mother situation. The loss of exits, multiple times the voice telling the kids to do things(the mother), them not following, and them getting harshly punished, even the mother being loving to try and make up for what she did. The toys being taken away, people being changed from the abuse, and even the house is completely different as things get worse. The children see their mother as a monster.

childhood is really a snapshot of a variety of different little memories. three big ones that always sit impossibly clear in my mind. 1: when i was playing on the monkey bars going back and forth on them and then blinking, being face down crying while my face was slathered in blood as i had slammed my face into one of the bars, panicked, fell, and cried into my own bleeding eyebrow. 2: lying awake on a couch with at that time my best friend near me into the long hours of the night to scared to sleep and not wanting to disturb him and get him in the same mess at a sleepover. and 3: that time at the aquarium where i got attacked by a bird trying to show off to a friend as part of a live demonstration that the aquarium was doing for south american birds by feeding the birds. yea, the scars did fade, but it was a centimeter away from my eye and i could be a one eyed man nowadays.

The thing that really gets me is when Kevin brings kaylee juice. It actually seems like something a little kid would do when they know someone is upset

I can't recall the amount of times I had nightmares like this movie when I was a child!!! Earring voices in the dark, screaming at me. Telling me something horrible will happen to me if I don't stop my brother from crying. Knowing something is off, but can't put the finger on. Is it really my house or am I dreaming? Seeing my mom in the shadows and uncertain if it's really her. It's like this guy went into my head and visualized my childhood nightmare. Trust me, I didn't want to go back to this period. Hauting!!!

Seeing this in the perspective of innocent helpless children who dont fully understand and can't grasp the severity of what situation they are in. It really gives me a terrible feeling in my stomach. I felt absolutely helpless watching it

As a kid, I had a repeating nightmare that struck several times over years and each time it was the most paralyzing terror ever, I was actually paralyzed in fear only seeing the monster in pitch dark, in my own house. So I had this nightmare again and again, until one time I was telling myself in the dream I had to do something, I couldn’t just be stuck in fear anymore. And from there it actually turned into a sequence of me in my kitchen actually getting up and defeating the monster, it’s still dark but now rather than pitch black there’s flashing lights and effects, like a tv show or game. Since then, I have never had that nightmare again.
This just made me think of that.

The scene with Kevin with the knife and hearing him cry made me so upset and want to go run upstairs and cuddle my baby brother who just turned 5. This movie is very effective at making you feel helpless and desperate to do something if you really let it pull you in.

Your analysis is Dead On. While I watched, I felt exactly the way I did after my parents would beat me up. And frankly, I needed this film. I needed to see my child’s eye perspective of what kept happening, and how I knew that no one would help me and that I was trapped in the house with the danger. Much respect to this film maker.

Just a personal point: the way the mother talks about how she loves them is exactly the tone my father had when he said goodbye before he, uh, Skinamarinked himself. Very eerie

When I was a kid, I always had to watch a happy movie after a scary one. This movie took me back to that time and that line at the end really made me realize that it was meant to.

There’s a lot interesting theories going around about this movie, but I’m wondering if Kevin’s fall down the stairs is the catalyst for this whole nightmare. I’m sure the theories of abuse and the parents (or one of them) “skinamarink”ing themselves fit in too, but after seeing the pieces of text like “572 days” and “mommy” as and endless loop happens COULD just be supernatural, OR Kevin could be stuck in a coma from his fall. Brain activity during comas is very interesting in how a lot of the censoring that your brain does normally turns off. Along with all the instinctive fears children have (such as fears of the dark, fears of death, etc.), any traumatic experiences Kevin might have had prior to his fall would definitely be uncensored and coming at him in the wildest ways imaginable if he was stuck in a coma. But that’s just my thoughts

I actually just watched this today. It brings me back to being afraid of everything in my room at night. My family believes in the paranormal, so I constantly thought there were shadow people/shadow creatures everywhere. This brings me back to that in the most intense way.
The other thing that gets me is the toy phone. The clip shown at 24:40 is... unnerving. Especially because the smile reminds me of the nightmare clown sequence from Brave Little Toaster. It feels so... oddly visceral. It was the only clip to actually scare me in the movie, and only cos it was so loud.
Anyways. This was a really awesome movie, I'm def gonna watch it again.

Oh man I've totally had that "shadow in the corner of the room" moment when I was a kid. I woke up one night and in my closet (which had no door) was a pair of glowing green eyes and what appeared to be teeth. I froze. I couldn't tell if it was blinking or not because the glow wasn't that bright it was feint but definitely green. Eventually I worked up the courage to turn a light on and its was my Monster Face toy. Known to the generation after me as the Goosebumps Monster Head Maker I just found out.

Dialogue in this movie worked so well, tension had me on the edge of my seat. The final reveal of the face-like shape in the dark, felt in part so uncanny, because it was the first fully shown face in the entire movie.

It seems like it is an allegory for abuse. The time loop might represent how it repeats daily to the point of feeling trapped forever. The change from "close your eyes" to the mom not having a name seems to be the first steps into abusive behavior that then escalate to the point of not recognizing the person as mom anymore. If the parents are getting a divorce, it might be that the mom is punishing the children for reminding her of the father. Which would explain why its only started happening after that. The legos on the ceiling probably represents happy times moving further out of reach as further emphasized by the long stretching hallway.

I went through alot of abuse as a child and this movie reminded me SO much of it. They did an amazing job with portraying it in this manner.

I gotta say, this movie evokes a terror in me that I’ve only ever felt while trapped in a house with my raging abusive mother, being unable to call my father for help because my mother had my cellphone and she could pick up the landline if I tried to call from that. I’m amazed that a film can evoke such a feeling, and while (as a fan of horror and experimental films) I love this movie, I can safely say that I never want to watch it ever again
Edit: I’m writing this comment before watching the analysis or reading through the comments section.

The scene with the father and mother on the bed made me think perhaps this was a seperated family, with an abusive mother. The mother killed the father and children... perhaps later herself. And kaylee is reliving the moment her father wanted her to hide under the bed. With her mother telling her she loves them and to close her eyes before doing a terrible act to them. Kevin later being called to the basement might be where he originally died.
The house could be some horrible purgatory the children are stuck in, they would be too young to understand what happened to them before.
The weird noises and struggles being arguments from when the parents were together.

My biological mom is bipolar, and also has struggled with drug use. I don’t see her very often, maybe once a year, but we do have contact with each other. A lot of this film really spoke to me, both in that regard and as someone who suffers from paranoia and delusions and has grown up dealing with a lot of untreated issues. One second a parent is loving and affectionate, the next they’re angry, vindictive, manipulative and, to put it simply, a monster. It’s confusing and terrifying and it’s not uncommon to feel “trapped”- especially when you still love the person, but the relationship is hurting you and you know that but don’t want to make things worse by trying to do something. It’s even worse when you’re younger. You don’t have the life experience to understand abusive behavior. So many kids have it pushed on them that they don’t get to have boundaries, and you’re told that adults are right and you are wrong, so you just bite your tongue and go along with it because you think it’s just “tough love” or that you don’t have another choice. I adore liminal, disturbing, obscure and experimental horror, especially when its done right and delivers a message, and I think this movie did it quite well.

As a kid who had ... To put it simply, a short childhood .. This movie just- .. Hits something in my brain. I would wake up to a quiet and lonely house more often than not, as both my parents had to work for us to be able to live. Even during the daytime it was always so .. Eerie. Obviously after a while I got used to it .. But the feeling never fully went away. This only got worse when my parents split up and my little brother and I constantly juggled between houses.
This movie manages to tap into the anxiety of a child by themselves, even if they have a sibling there. It reminds me of the feeling when your parent takes longer to come home than usual and you're just .. Sitting there, wondering if when you told them "I love you" when they left for work is the last words you ever told them.
Safe to say, this movie fucked me up, and I'm going to rewatch it in the near future

I think the mom is alive in the beginning, tells the son that "she loves him very much" and then hangs herself in the closet. The bones breaking sound is her neck snapping. That's why the boy is seen looking up, that's why the toys float up, there's so many shots of the ceiling.
After a parents suicide, the remaining spouse will fall into a deep depression and the children suffer so much, especially if there is no outside help. I think this film is about not being able to escape the feeling of hopelessness (the doors disappear, the phone turns into a toy) after suffering a huge trauma as a child. The "demon" is a manifestation of all of that.
The kids stay up late because the father has lost control, they're neglected, toys are everywhere, the demon tells the kids to do horrible things (some kids blame themselves) and the kids say "where's dad? maybe he went with mom" alluding that the dad might have killed himself too and left them all alone.

While I can’t personally remember any actual childhood experiences like the one Wendigoon describes, I remember having vivid nightmares about being trapped in my elementary school after dark, or waking up in the same room I fell asleep in and everything being “different” in a way I couldn’t adequately describe and feeling terrified by that unfamiliarity. I think that’s the reason liminal spaces are so appealing to me now. It’s like I have a desire in my adulthood to “investigate” those nightmare spaces that scared me as a child, and see what’s really lurking there.

anyone who suffers from childhood trauma will insantly understand what this movie is trying to do

It was pretty obvious to me this is a metaphor for the psychological trauma and pain the children are feeling after their parents get divorced.
They blame their mother for the divorce as she is the one who informed them of it.
The children now live with their Dad and that’s why he calls her to let her know about Kevin’s fall.
The whole movie is about the dissolving of a family and the house they grew up in becoming a scary, unpredictable place.
In the weakest metaphor of the film, the children’s world is literally turning upside down.
The unsafe element introduced to the home is the divorce. Where once having their mom in the house was expected, now that she’s moved out the children would be surprised if she were to suddenly be home.
They are helpless to stop the divorce of fix their parent’s relationship or make things go back to the way they were.

since this movie is taking place in 1995, that brings up memories for me, as i was only 8.
the movie took me back to when i had trouble sleeping a lot as a kid. i would wake up in the middle of the night, fearful of the dark, the unknown. it didn’t matter that there was a night light in my room. i felt incredibly alone, and unsafe, even though my parents were sleeping in the next room.

My own interpretation of this story is that Kevin and Kaylee's mother was an abuser with drug and/or mental health issues, she injured him, the father didn't protect him/lied about it, and the movie depicts Kevin's dwindling mental state as his personality is steadily replaced by a cruel new one who no longer recognizes people as people, and exists only to hurt others in a manner similar to his mother, while the innocent side of Kevin is trapped in an unending loop of the trauma that broke his mind.

I like the scene where the father tells his daughter to look under the bed. The cliche is checking under your bed for monsters, right? There's nothing there, but when she comes back up, her father is gone and her mother is there. Her mother is the monster and it doesnt even have to hide under the bed anymore.

The general vibe and atmosphere of this film reminds me of the feeling that I used to get as a child waking up from a specific recurring nightmare. In the nightmare, I would be suspended in a vast, celestial black void. All alone in the abyss, I would have the sudden sensation of being crushed by some kind of unfathomable, monstrous machinery of death. Upon awakening in a cold sweat, the silence of my room would be deafening. I would be overcome with an intense feeling of dread, paranoia and danger. I remember feeling as though the walls of my bedroom became embodied with the hateful, predatory gaze of some kind of unforeseen malevolent force. These sensations would often last for about 10-15 minutes before which time I would gather the courage to return to my bedroom after seeking the comfort of my parents. Somehow, this film managed to mimic EXACTLY how I felt awakening from those recurring nightmares as an 8 year old. An absolute modern masterpiece!

The film, in my opinion, is allegory for Kevin making sense of his parents' divorce, the house being broken and confusing because his mother is gone, his father being heard but seldom seen because of work, Kailey disappearing because of joint custody, and the "entity" is just an embodiment of Kevin losing his innocence and his childish mind struggling to grasp the reality of what is happening.
Essentially, the whole film is an art house representation of divorce and the emotional trauma of the children going through the custody battle.
The scene where "the entity" tells Kevin to stab himself in the eye is the representation of what Kevin is seeing and trying to process in his life causing him physical pain.

Just want to say how glad I am how you laid out what happened in clear detail, because it felt a lot more cohesive than when I watched it last night! The experience of watching was like meditating in a nightmare, just transfixed by this pure dread I felt for nearly two hours with purposefully-confusing camera angles and noises. What an effective film.

I’ve kind of come to the theory that I think these kids are stuck in the same lucid nightmare/dream. But the dark side where there’s dream demons. Those dream demons are made to appear as their “missing” parents to gain the trust of the kids. Ultimately getting them to hurt themselves and die. Leaving them in purgatory. It’s why Kevin was playing hide and seek at the beginning and fell down the stairs while he was asleep. And I think at the end the viewer becomes a different child and meets the sleep demon. The sleep demon is faceless because it is supposed to have the viewer recall a familiar face that would stick out in their own head. And the child speaking at the end is voiceless because it’s supposed to be the viewers own voice in their own head. Abuse or not, you still have some expectation to listen to what your parents tell you when you’re 4 and 6. And even though I don’t follow that same narrative, I can see why somebody would.

This was so important for me, because I still have these childhood fears as a teenager, and I felt very alone in these fears until I saw you talking about both the film and your own experience. Thank you so much for -in a world of unknown- giving me the comfort of knowing that I'm not the only one who experiences this.

I agree with the abuse theory. The evidence adds up, Especially the part where kaylee just… loses her face.
She spoke too much, screamed too loud, therefore she didn’t deserve to speak anymore.
Abusive parents silence their children. The children are forced to stay quiet because of the consequences they could face. And it’s heartbreaking.

I had reoccurring dreams/nightmares in one of the houses I grew up in. My dream would consist of me “waking up” and being all alone in the house with none of the lights working, and my voice being basically non existent. I remember calling out for my mom and nothing coming out. Would leave me absolutely terrified and I’d have to sleep with a nightlight until middle school. Even at 28 years old, I still get uneasy in the dark. Funnily enough, I’m more creeped out of being alone in a dark building than alone in the dark woods.

I think it’s good to mention that the melody that plays when the toys and blood disappears is the same melody on the tv where the bunny phases out of reality

my story is long but holy shit I had such an INCREDIBLY similar experience to your story at 26:47 that hearing yours freaked me out that someone else went through it. This was a shared experience between me, my older sister, and my younger brother.
We were probably 6-7, 8-9, and 9-10 years old playing hide and seek (just us three or us and our parents I don't quite remember) in our house and we were in our spots. I'm not clear on which parent was supposed to find us, but all I remember is that we hid for long enough that it became worrying that it was taking them so long, because for an adult, finding three children hiding in a house isn't hard to do. We knew that much.
I remember leaving my spot and going to the living room with my siblings, but I'm not sure if we decided together that we would do that. Regardless, the house just suddenly felt off. It was like gravity shifted, that's how strange it felt. I remember the way I saw my house was like if you desaturated an image, made it kind of black and white but still able to see color; that's how I experienced the unfamiliarity of it all. It was scarily quiet as well.
Collectively, we knew, and I don't know how because I don't remember of us asking about it before we came to this realization, that our parents just...vanished. Being around them for so long, we knew the 'someone's behind me and staring at me' gut feeling when we knew our parents were in the house, and could come into wherever we were at any given moment. But this time, that feeling was completely nonexistent. We didn't even have to tell each other, we just understood that due to the lack of noise and feeling of their presences, mom and dad aren't here and started looking. I don't remember feeling scared because I thought they decided to prank us and hide us, to make look for I don't remember my siblings being scared either, so they possibly thought the same.
But when we searched the house, yelling for them, we met back up with no luck. we started freaking out. We cried, we checked again, again, and again. Still no luck. We looked through the windows if they were outside, and they were not.
We decided that we'd go to our neighbor's house, so we did. We didn't even get shoes, just bolted outside and next door. The three of us knocked on their door and told them "we don't know where our parents are, can you call them?"
And then suddenly, out of absolutely nowhere, they call for us. They're outside in our driveway, walking towards us. Gravity returns, color is restored to its natural vibrancy, and nature sounds start up again. To me, that was how I experienced normalcy returning. When my parents were around, it was livelier, normal again.
Here's the thing though.
If they went outside, they would have told us, but they didn't say anything about leaving the game. If they weren't even playing with us, they would have still said something, but they didn't. No matter where they were, they would have heard us and responded, but they didn't.
No matter what, they would have announced their exit or answered our calls, but never did.
We asked them about this a few years ago and got an answer that made sense, so we know it was real and not a dream or just children not realizing something super slight had happened, like maybe mom and dad went to the bathrooms at the same time because we had two on that floor.
I asked my siblings for more details on what I am unsure of, so I'll edit this when I get them.

Your story about being left alone as a kid made me remember when something similar happened to me. I was about 6 or 7 and my Mom had taken my brother to his dance class and my Dad had gone to work. It was morning and the sun was out so it was less terrifying in that regard, but it was still just me and our dog in a silent, empty house with no explanation. I actually remember putting on Cartoon Network to try and make myself feel better, kinda like the kids in the movie. Of course, my Mom and brother came home fairly soon and she felt terrible about it, but this movie makes me think back on that and imagine if they didn't and things only got worse and worse.

As a survivor of child abuse this movie is spot on for the fear you feel in that situation. I don't think thats necessarily the answer to "whats the movie about." but its just so accurate.

I grew up with severe Nightmare Disorder. My parents stopped responding to my fear. Skinamarink captures the childhood feeling of being helpless, and being terrified, as well as the feeling of being trapped in a nightmare perfectly.

28:07 - I feel this on a spiritual level. When I was 3, I had a nightmare set in this dimly lit room with red and black checkered floor tiles, and crimson painted walls. I was hiding under a long traditional dinner table covered by a table cloth long enough to conceal anything underneath, and I watched the devil enter the room with a female, and as they sat at the table they conversed for a little while, my fear increased immensely. Eventually they finished eating, and embraced each other. This is where it gets blurry, but as i hear them kissing right on the other side of the tablecloth, I hear a series of sudden groans, gurgles, and screams until it stops at complete random. Blood splatters everywhere, and as I hide underneath the table in utter shock, the devil walks up to the table and sends the table flying towards the opposing wall. He then bends over, picks me up, and whispers something to me. All I can remember is that I felt immense dread. I immediately woke up in a panic, searching and crying for my mom. Apparently she was sleeping next to me, but if there’s any part I remember the clearest of that whole night, it is that she was nowhere to be found. I panicked, and went out searching for her. I somehow managed to get past all of the locks in the trailer, and started my way down the road in my search for her. At some point I tried to cross the road, and a trucker swerved and almost hit me, but missed me by a hair, or so Ive heard. I cant remember anything else, but he took me to the police, they got the call about a missing child right as the trucker told them the situation and they took me home, and mom was outside hysterical. That was the earliest memory I can recollect in my life. Also the earliest recollections ive had where i felt immense dread

I saw the movie when it leaked online and was HYPED when it came to theaters.
I anticipated the audience would underestimate it due to its uncanny approach so I certainly wasn’t surprised when people weren’t paying full attention. But, there is a certain point in the film that makes it abundantly clear this isn’t a movie looking for a cheap scare and cash grab. And I loved seeing the theater transition from chatters and giggles to horrified silence

23:44
I don’t think that’s a doll house. It’s the house itself. Similarly to how I think that the phone Kevin picks up was always the toy phone. The entity is torturing him for it’s own amusement.
In my mind, the moment the windows and doors went missing the home was transported to this entities realm. Everything that happens is meant to torture the children and cause them anguish in a way they can’t understand because that it is what satiates it. The house is in it’s realm so that it can feed. Like livestock in a barn. It’s fucked up.