Earlier this year I went to see Kyle Edward Ball’s debut feature, Skinamarink, at the cinema, and it was by far one of the scariest cinemagoing experiences I have ever had. Even now as of writing this, roughly two months after having seen Skinamarink, I am haunted by visions of what I saw, and I have not been able to navigate my home of a night-time without feeling just a little bit anxious.
Suffice to say, Skinamarink has gotten to me in a way that few horror films ever have, and I love it all the more for that. So, I’ve been checking out Ball’s Youtube page, Bitesized Nightmares, to continue scaring myself silly. I had no intention of reviewing anything I saw on his page, but when I came to the short film Heck, the film that acted as a jumping off point for Skinamarink, I had a desire to share what I thought about it considering how similar it and Skinamarink are.
When a young boy (Jeffty Ellison) awakes in the night to the sound of the TV loudly playing cartoons, he goes in search of his missing mother (Courtney McNeilly).
A short plot synopsis I know but that premise really is about all you’re able to decipher from Heck, at least on a first viewing. Like Skinamarink, it keeps the premise simple, and the focus on how a child deals with being in a traumatic situation. But where Skinamarink had a malevolent entity pulling the strings in the shadows, Heck seemingly does not.
Skinamarink’s runtime was its Achilles Heel. Clocking in at an hour and forty minutes it did feel a little bloated, as though it was playing for time a little bit, and it would have made a fantastic eighty-minute film. Heck meanwhile comes in at just shy of half an hour, and I’ve seen plenty of people online state that Heck is ‘all the best bits of Skinamarink in a more condensed version’, and I can’t say I agree with that because a lot of what made Skinamarink so great was that it often took an agonising amount of time for things to happen. But it does mean that Heck’s runtime flies by, particularly if you are scared by it, which I was.
There are far fewer instances of the camera just pointing at carpet for a couple of minutes, there are also no jump scares which I found surprising because despite Skinamarink’s terror not coming from the jump scares specifically, they acted as a release of sorts for the tension. Heck just keeps ratcheting it up and up until either you break, or it ends, and it does end on a heart-breaking realisation.
Suffice to say, Skinamarink has gotten to me in a way that few horror films ever have, and I love it all the more for that. So, I’ve been checking out Ball’s Youtube page, Bitesized Nightmares, to continue scaring myself silly. I had no intention of reviewing anything I saw on his page, but when I came to the short film Heck, the film that acted as a jumping off point for Skinamarink, I had a desire to share what I thought about it considering how similar it and Skinamarink are.
When a young boy (Jeffty Ellison) awakes in the night to the sound of the TV loudly playing cartoons, he goes in search of his missing mother (Courtney McNeilly).
A short plot synopsis I know but that premise really is about all you’re able to decipher from Heck, at least on a first viewing. Like Skinamarink, it keeps the premise simple, and the focus on how a child deals with being in a traumatic situation. But where Skinamarink had a malevolent entity pulling the strings in the shadows, Heck seemingly does not.
Skinamarink’s runtime was its Achilles Heel. Clocking in at an hour and forty minutes it did feel a little bloated, as though it was playing for time a little bit, and it would have made a fantastic eighty-minute film. Heck meanwhile comes in at just shy of half an hour, and I’ve seen plenty of people online state that Heck is ‘all the best bits of Skinamarink in a more condensed version’, and I can’t say I agree with that because a lot of what made Skinamarink so great was that it often took an agonising amount of time for things to happen. But it does mean that Heck’s runtime flies by, particularly if you are scared by it, which I was.
There are far fewer instances of the camera just pointing at carpet for a couple of minutes, there are also no jump scares which I found surprising because despite Skinamarink’s terror not coming from the jump scares specifically, they acted as a release of sorts for the tension. Heck just keeps ratcheting it up and up until either you break, or it ends, and it does end on a heart-breaking realisation.
What Heck really does succeed in over Skinamarink is manipulating your emotions as the viewer. The child in Heck is entirely alone and given their recent recovery from cancer (which is divulged relatively early on), it’s enough to make you terrified for them. In Skinamarink, Kevin and Kaylee had each other, at least to start with anyway. Heck also takes place over a much longer length of time, despite being a shorter film. With the final timestamp indicating that approximately fifty-one years has passed since the start of the film, and with this greater length of time, the child has been able to make a much more disturbing realisation than was ever granted to Kevin in Skinamarink.
Heck looks and sounds almost identical to Skinamarink. A low-quality grainy camera, with the image either massively under or over exposed so you can’t make out what you’re looking at a lot of the time. The microphone gain has been turned all the way up so basically all you hear is hiss, as well as distorted and muffled speech when it seldom happens. It’s tough to watch because of this design, and it only adds to the unbearably creepy nature of the film.
I did enjoy Heck, but I preferred Skinamarink. Heck does feel like a proof of concept, a great one at that, but the story has so little to work with that trying to make sense of it all is incredibly hard. Whilst Skinamarink was no walk in the park to understand, it did at least leave enough breadcrumbs for you to follow and speculate on. Skinamarink also tapped into my own fears considerably better, with a house that’s shifting and changing as time goes on, creating an unfamiliar environment out of a place that should be safe for Kevin & Kaylee. Heck meanwhile really is just a kid alone in a dark house, which is still terrifying, but not quite as terrifying for me as being lost in a place I know well.
If you liked Sinkamarink then you’ll like Heck, and if you’re on the fence about whether to watch Skinamarink then Heck is the perfect litmus test. Turn the lights off, the sound up, and prepare for one of the scariest twenty-eight minutes you’ll ever see on Youtube.
Heck looks and sounds almost identical to Skinamarink. A low-quality grainy camera, with the image either massively under or over exposed so you can’t make out what you’re looking at a lot of the time. The microphone gain has been turned all the way up so basically all you hear is hiss, as well as distorted and muffled speech when it seldom happens. It’s tough to watch because of this design, and it only adds to the unbearably creepy nature of the film.
I did enjoy Heck, but I preferred Skinamarink. Heck does feel like a proof of concept, a great one at that, but the story has so little to work with that trying to make sense of it all is incredibly hard. Whilst Skinamarink was no walk in the park to understand, it did at least leave enough breadcrumbs for you to follow and speculate on. Skinamarink also tapped into my own fears considerably better, with a house that’s shifting and changing as time goes on, creating an unfamiliar environment out of a place that should be safe for Kevin & Kaylee. Heck meanwhile really is just a kid alone in a dark house, which is still terrifying, but not quite as terrifying for me as being lost in a place I know well.
If you liked Sinkamarink then you’ll like Heck, and if you’re on the fence about whether to watch Skinamarink then Heck is the perfect litmus test. Turn the lights off, the sound up, and prepare for one of the scariest twenty-eight minutes you’ll ever see on Youtube.