seriously, i just finished watching it, i have my criticisms which seem to fall in line with some others have made (i.e. drawn out etc.) but overall the film was great in the sense of being a film, i did not however feel great after watching it, i needed answers. its not the scariest movie ever but the implications and situation in general are very depressing and kinda stick in your head
9/10 :concerned-confusion: watch in the right headspace but also don't watch if youre squeamish about bad things happening to (very) young kids
I think Skinamarink is the scariest flick I've seen in a long time, maybe ever. I think the the sense of worsening dread as the plot develops and savagery and hopelessness ratchet up is pretty unique.
I think you're right about the depressing :doomjak: feeling too, it stuck around with me for a few days. The fact that they're so young, and thus haven't fully developed a consistent set of rules for how the world definitely should be, means they begin adjusting their sense of normal to this heinous scenario that the audience understands to be completely demonic.
spoiler
Toward the end of the film the spirits seem to supplant the role of the parent while maintaining their role as tormentor, which is such a fundamentally dire and perverse development.
Really great, no notes I thought it was perfect. The Hammer and Podcast fellas did a review on it last weekend (these are the guys that used to do film reviews with Breht on Rev Left Radio Back in the day.) Taylor has an interesting interpretation of the spirits as an embodiment of ideology itself - while I wouldn't phrase it exactly like that, I do think that line of thinking is what made it stand out to me.
If you're going to try watching it, go to a theatre, don't watch it on your laptop while scrolling Hexbear, it is made with the expectation you pay attention and allow the horror to sink into you
Thank you for the podcast reference I'm a voracious consumer of podcasts and my queue has been a little lacking lately (after consuming most of the episodes of all the podcasts i tune into) and yes it really is a dreadful film those kids don't know how wrong the situation they're in is