SKINAMARINK, The Visual World of Ethel Cain, and The Horror of the Mundane

Experimental lo-fi horror sensation SKINAMARINK is sweeping the nation this weekend with its limited theatrical run courtesy of Shudder. Despite a few obvious jump scares, the creepy aesthetic, and the heavily suggested violence against young children, critics and viewers alike are left scratching their heads over what exactly makes the film so frightening. Largely plotless and riding on its undeniably unnerving premise, SKINAMARINK relies on the dark side of mid-90s nostalgia to create its eerily familiar mood. 

Lucas Paul as Kevin in SKINAMARINK

Cover of Ethel Cain's EP "Carpet Bed"

The simple synopsis for SKINAMARINK reads as follows: “Two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing, and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished.” The premise manifests in a spectacularly creepy fashion. Furniture appears on the ceiling, toys cling to the walls, and a demonic voice leads the children to their doom. And in between the film’s more explicitly frightening sequences are countless shots of carpeted floors, wood-paneled walls, and the molding of doorways and baseboards. 

SKINAMARINK

Ethel Cain

Cain

There is an undeniable appeal to the nostalgia of a certain breed of middle-class Americans who grew up in the 90s and early 2000s. But not the warm and fuzzy nostalgia that makes you long for the carefree comfort of childhood. Oh no, this is the kind of repressed memory nightmare fuel that will make you remember sleepless nights and seeing the darkness around you form formidable shapes. SKINAMARINK conjures the fear only a child can have - a complete feeling of helplessness, and a desire for a parent’s protection. 

SKINAMARINK

Cain

Also central to the visual language of SKINAMARINK is the horror that lies in images of everyday scenes or objects, stifled by a horrible sense of dread hanging overhead. In such uneasy circumstances, a lingering shot of a doll, crayon, lego, or Fisher Price Chatter Telephone can form a dark ball of fear in the pit of your stomach. The kinds of images used by the filmmakers of SKINAMARINK point to an ethos of finding horror in the most mundane settings - an instinct shared by multimodal artist and indie musician Ethel Cain. 

Dali Rose Tetreault as Kaylee in SKINAMARINK

"Preacher's Daughter" Album Cover

Inspired by the Southern Gothic, true crime, and her religious upbringing, Cain’s music and storytelling paint a horrifying portrait of life in the American South for a young queer woman. Cain’s music and promotional images bring to life a world full of decay, abuse, desperation, and despair, primarily through the use of unsettling domestic imagery. Not unlike SKINAMARINK’s writer/director Kyle Edward Ball, Cain sees the inside of the home as a site of immense horror. The specter of a traumatic childhood haunts Cain’s fictional world as well as Ball’s. 

It is in these everyday settings that the most disturbing feelings can be evoked in a viewer or listener. In Ball and Cain’s work, a place that is meant to be safe is subverted into a metaphysical prison of sorts. SKINAMARINK and Cain’s debut album Preacher’s Daughter both use the power of suggestion to hint at a family tragedy or crisis that propels the central child characters into their respective nightmares. As the souls of the children inhabiting the home are corrupted in SKINAMARINK, the character of Ethel is driven from her home by her trauma, toward a life on the road that will end in her violent death. 

While SKINAMARINK depicts the monochromatic and nearly-identical nature of new-build suburban homes, Cain’s world is a much more decrepit one, full of aging houses in a dead-end town. The home is an inescapable place for her characters, who are oppressed by religion, domestic abuse, and lack of means to escape. While most works that evoke nostalgic emotions make us wish to be children again, listening to Ethel Cain or watching SKINAMARINK will do the opposite. More likely, instead, is a deep gratitude to have made it out alive. 

Stills sourced from SKINAMARINK (2022) dir. Kyle Edward Ball and @mothercain on tumblr.com.