Here's When You Can Watch Skinamarink At Home With The Lights Off

In what's become one of the year's most fascinating screen stories, Kyle Edward Ball's experimental creeper "Skinamarink" has become a legit cinematic sensation. Produced on a reported $15,000 budget, and shot in the director's own childhood home, the lo-fi horror flick's box office has topped $1 million after just a few short days in release (per Bloody Disgusting). If you've yet to see or hear about the film, "Skinamarink" is a near plotless found footage-styled anomaly that follows a young boy named Kevin (Lucas Paul) and his sister Kaylie (Dali Rose Tetrault) as they wake in the middle of the night to find their father missing and all the doors and windows in their home gone.

From there, Ball delivers a nerve-shredding onslaught of atmospheric chills driven by an eerily exacting sound design and shadowy, expressionistic visuals. More a stark depiction of a child's seemingly unending nightmare than a traditional horror movie, "Skinamarink" benefitted greatly from social media buzz derived after an oversight allowed it to be downloaded and shared during an online festival screening (per Variety).

Now that the film has received a proper theatrical release, it's more than living up to the buzz, leaving some viewers shaken to their core as they exit the multiplex. Still, with "Skinamarink" currently playing on fewer than 700 screens nationwide, many genre enthusiasts haven't had a chance to see Ball's cinematic nightmare for themselves. Seems, however, that is set to change in a matter of mere weeks.    

It seems only fitting that "Skinamarink" rose to prominence via an online frenzy. The film's beginnings can, after all, be tracked by Kyle Edward Ball's own "Bitesized Nightmares" YouTube channel. Fans of the channel were no doubt elated when news first broke that "Skinamarink" was indeed set to get a proper theatrical release via IFC Midnight. They were likely even happier by the accompanying news that the film would stream on Shudder soon after its theatrical debut.

Given the film's impressive box office take, producers may now be second-guessing their quick theatrical-to-streaming game plan for "Skinamarink," as the film may have more financial potential than anyone dreamed. Nonetheless, per a recent press release obtained by Looper, the film will indeed be hitting the streaming realm on February 2, 2023. And yes, "Skinamarink" will be streaming exclusively on Shudder for the foreseeable future. So if you've yet to subscribe to the platform, you'll need to do so if you want to experience "Skinamarink" in the relative comfort of your own darkened living room.

As it is, that screening environment may only bolster the film's inherent anxiety because, well, you'll be watching "Skinamarink" in a dark room with no other sound on. At least in a theater you've not only got fellow viewers around you, but a trip home to decompress from the nightmarish action as well. Frankly, the thought of turning "Skinamarink" off and immediately walking around a darkened house is enough to inspire its own sort of nightmares.