Skinamarink 2023

As the morning sun struggles to break through the gloom of their home in 1995, four-year-old Kevin finds himself embroiled in a tragic incident that his older sister, Kaylee, assumes to be a result of sleepwalking. The siblings are rushed to the hospital but soon return to their bewildering situation. As the night descends, they awaken to an unsettling reality: their father has inexplicably vanished, leaving behind a peculiar trail of disappearing everyday objects, including windows and doors. To pass the time, Kevin suggests they sleep downstairs and watch cartoons on television.

As darkness envelops the house, the children’s peace is shattered by an eerie thumping sound, leading them to discover a chair unnaturally hanging upside-down from the ceiling. Kevin speculates that their father “went with mom,” yet Kaylee hesitates to delve into the mystery of their mother’s absence. Upon venturing upstairs, they are confronted with an astonishing sight: a bathroom toilet has mysteriously disintegrated.

In the upstairs bathroom, Kaylee stumbles upon a doll bizarrely balanced on the ceiling. Overwhelmed by fear, Kevin declines to use the restroom and proposes placing two buckets in the downstairs bathroom instead. Suddenly, a sinister voice calls out to Kaylee from the shadows, encouraging her to ascend the stairs. Upon arriving upstairs, she encounters their father, who instructs her to lift the bed’s edge. Although she uncovers nothing, their mother appears, professing her love before vanishing again into the void.

Regaining her composure, Kaylee notices her closet ajar and hears her mother’s distant whispers, urging her to approach. Inside, sinister sounds of bones cracking and anguished cries fill the air. In a moment of sheer terror, a hand reaches out from the dark, sending Kaylee into a panic. As she races down the stairs, Kevin assists her in barricading the hallway with a couch, attempting to protect her from the unsettling voice that had beckoned her. When Kevin falls asleep, the voice calls to Kaylee once again, resulting in her abrupt disappearance, accompanied by a bizarre procession of toys and objects stuck to the walls like haunting relics.

The voice now turns its sinister attention to Kevin, luring him into the basement, where he is met with the horrific sight of Kaylee, her features ominously erased. The voice, dripping with malice, invites him to play, causing toys to vanish before him. In a chilling moment, a drawer slides open, and Kevin finds himself compelled to insert a knife into one of his own eyes. Panic grips him as he dials 9-1-1, whispering to the operator about his injuries, only to have the operator assure him that help is on the way; however, before he can respond, the phone slips from his grasp, replaced by a Chatter Telephone toy.

As the voice savors its newfound control, it discloses that Kaylee’s defiance—her desire to see her parents—cost her dearly, resulting in her mouth being taken away as punishment. Kevin is then commanded to head upstairs, where he mysteriously finds himself on the ceiling, flashlight in hand. The room around him begins to dissolve, replaced by an infinite hallway filled with toys and an oversized dollhouse resting upon a vast mound of playthings.

A cryptic message flickers into view: “572 days.” As Kevin traverses this surreal landscape, he encounters a woman on the bed, her form gradually fading until only her head remains visible. Scattered photographs depict faces that are either missing or grotesquely altered. Suddenly, blood appears on the floor, only to vanish and reappear in a ghastly cycle.

In a moment of desperation, Kevin implores the voice for a glimpse of something joyful, and an illusory door materializes before him. In the heavy darkness, an undefined face looms overhead, bidding him goodnight as the room sinks into shadow. Despite Kevin’s fervent pleas for a name, the face remains mute, leaving him ensnared in this waking nightmare with no conceivable escape.