Skinamarink Explained - A Forgotten Nightmare

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The concept of innocent children being trapped in an infinite loop of torture because of a parent's mistake is impossibly upsetting. Even worse when you realize it can very easily be seen as a number of real life allegories.

The father being gone/unresponsive, and the mom "inviting in" the entity makes me think it was something along the lines of a traumatic divorce

The cartoon the kids were watching with the dog opening those doors is actually a cartoon made by Max Fleshier in 1931. In it, Bimbo (the dog in the cartoon) tries to escape a cult and is essentially tortured in ways similar to what Kevin went through and tempted by the cult by a look a like of a loved one (Bimbo's girlfriend in this case) in an effort to get him to join. The animation itself is called "Bimbo's Initiation" and it's weird but so is most 1930's animation. At one point in the cartoon the room flips, and suddenly Bimbo is walking on the ceiling similar to what happens to Kevin. There are A LOT of parallels to Skinamarink in this cartoon its insane. Maybe the Mom could've been involved in a cult and that's how the entity was unintentionally invited into the house? Idk just thought it was interesting. If you want, watch the animation to see what I mean. :)

I love hearing you explain "we see this and that happening" meanwhile the screen just shows a smudge in the darkness

I think the mom is alive in the beginning, tells the son that "she loves him very much" and then hangs herself in the closet. The bones breaking sound is her neck snapping. That's why the boy is seen looking up, that's why the toys float up, there's so many shots of the ceiling. After a parents suicide, the remaining spouse will fall into a deep depression and the children suffer so much, especially if there is no outside help. I think this film is about not being able to escape the feeling of hopelessness (the doors disappear, the phone turns into a toy) after suffering a huge trauma as a child. The "demon" is a manifestation of all of that. The kids stay up late because the father has lost control, they're neglected, toys are everywhere, the demon tells the kids to do horrible things (some kids blame themselves) and the kids say "where's dad? maybe he went with mom" alluding that the dad might have killed himself too and left them all alone.

I absolutely adore the detail of Kevin not knowing exactly what to do to comfort his sister so he thinks about what makes him happy and gets her juice.

A thought: If the idea of the movie is that it's a metaphor for child abuse, I think the kids are being abused by her new boyfriend. -The father disappears leaving them only with their mother -She tells the kids something that sounds like a divorce -The sounds of bones breaking and crying in the other room is the bf beating their mother -Kaylie is being assaulted where her little brother can't see, and when she wants to tell someone she's being abused, it takes her voice away. -When her brother calls the police, it goes through, but the phone disappears. He's telling the police nothing's wrong. -When the father finally comes for the kids, everything is good again. They're safe. This also works with the metaphor you put forward, because it's THE MOTHER that lets the "demon" into the house.

the "love you" "love you too!" was so cute and made my heart sink as I realized that these kids were absolutely not going to make it out ok

Walking around your house in the dark as a kid is the most uncomfortable thing to do. You know it's your house, but you don't at the same time.

As someone who works at a movie theater, let me just say that not a single person who has seen the movie has walked out happy

i think the poltergeist isn't exactly "evil" but morbidly curious. it has the mind of a child in the way it "wants to play". moving toys/furniture around, punishing kaylee by taking her face away, fussy that kevin refused to play, and attentively watching the cartoons. it keeps replaying the scene of the rabbit vanishing into thin air. over and over again. it tells kevin "it can do anything". by the end of the movie you see blood splatter on the carpet and then disappears. then it happens again. over and over again. it's a child playing with its toy.

When I heard the “put the knife in your eye” phrase, I sat up straight as a board and shouted “No!”, it could be because it’s children in the place of adults being hurt, but I’ve never felt such guttural dread having children being threatened or hearing them scream and cry. I love horror films, I can watch just about anything, but this film made me feel so unbelievably helpless, and made me want to scoop up those kids and love of them.

When it’s happening to adults it’s scary. When it’s happening to kids it’s heart breaking.

In my honest opinion, feeling that you're not safe in a place where you're supposed to feel safe and secure is one of the worst feelings that you could experience. Home is a place where you're supposed to feel as if nothing can harm you, but if you do, then something is horribly- horribly wrong.

the childlike naivety is portrayed really well; he reacts nearly the same way to seeing his sister faceless as he does a toy telephone in the dark. the girl not pushing for information at all when the father asks her to look under the bed twice because she still blindly trusts him and, even after his mysterious disappearance and the mother's mysterious appearance, she listens when the mother tells her to close her eyes.

I gotta say that I like that the monster of this movie is, in a way, how a kid sees an adult: a force of nature of sorts, beyond your control, that asserts it's dominance by taking things away.

An interesting detail is when Kevin tries to call the police, but the monster turns it into a play telephone. It’s very reminiscent of being in an abusive household and being silenced by new, shiny things.

A trailer trash couple moved into the apartment beneath me for about eight months. They had two young boys and a newborn baby. They where constantly yelling, screaming at their kids, threatening to beat them, etc. Me and my neighbor reported them to CPS multiple times and nothing happened. Eventually the landlord told them they needed to move out because they had trashed the place. There where holes in the walls/doors, mountains of trash piled up everywhere, tons of bugs and roaches. I think about those three young kids all the time. Hell is real, and it's all around us. Its a place that the most vulnerable people in our world know all too well, they are trapped in it every day, and even though they live in the same physical space we do, they can't escape it.

This movie perfectly captures the feeling you get when you're half asleep and that pile of clothes looks like a person and you can't move