Tubi Streaming One of 2023’s Most Hyped Horror Movies, Even With Major Controversy Around It

Tubi is no stranger to bringing huge horror titles to anyone willing to watch a couple of ads. Currently horror fans can find a number of modern hits available to watch totally for free, including 2011’s The Cabin in the Woods, the underrated Scream 4, and Scott Derrickson’s Sinister; and that’s even without mentioning the classic movies like the original Fright Night, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. This month though, right before Halloween, Tubi has added a major horror movie of the 2020s, even if it’s one that carries some baggage with it.

First premiering at the Fantasia International Film Festival in 2022, Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink quickly built a reputation after it petrified initial audiences. Word-of-mouth about the movie quickly spread, with a copy of the film even leaking online. Despite the leak though, Skinamarink arrived in theaters in the US in January of 2023 and grossed over $2 million at the box office, a major win compared to its $15,000 budget. Even with critical acclaim and box office success, a shadow lingers over this bizarre horror movie.

Skinamarink Is Not a Typical Horror Movie

When described succinctly, Skinamarink sounds compelling and unique, and no matter how you feel about the film, it is. The movie follows two young kids that wake up in the middle of the night to find the windows and doors in their home have vanished, along with their father. Bizarre happenings continue with more objects in the house disappearing, and others suddenly floating on the walls and ceiling. Eventually an unseen voice begins to speak to the kids, asking them questions and telling them to move to new parts of the house.

It’s a creepy premise for sure, but in execution, Skinamarink is not a jump-scare-a-minute kind of movie, in fact it’s one that sits within the palpable dread that it’s creating. From lingering shots of empty hallways and rooms, to scenes that almost look like hidden faces in the dark, Skinamarink

The film asks its audience to be patient with the entire project, to see it through to the end and, once all is said and done, draw their own conclusions about what happened. Which is frankly why it has a controversial reputation now.

Why Skinamarink’s Hype Hurt It

Much like The Blair Witch Project before it, Skinamarink doesn’t have all the answers that general audiences are expecting. There’s no big third act reveal that confirms exactly what the voice is speaking to the kids, what really happened to their parents, or even how the doors and windows in the house disappeared. It’s a movie that forces you to ponder the entire tableau and figure it out yourself, or with friends, but this is often a met with disdain from some movie goers.

Though it currently holds a 73% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a lot of the initial response to Skinamarink was overwhelming. Early reviews noted that films like Skinamarink “come along once in a generation,” with one saying it contains the “most unsettling imagery in recent memory” and another noting that it “feels like a cursed film.” That in mind, it’s easy to see how the hype from those early reviews, not to mention the leaked version of the movie that went viral on social media, very quickly painted a picture for audiences about what they could expect from.

Over on Shudder, where the film is streaming at all times, reactions to Skinamarink range from expected to hilarious. Some of the comments are measured, such as one from a user named Bobcat who writes, “I greatly enjoyed this. This movie demands that you participate.” Others, less so.

“RIDICULOUS !!! THIS DOES NOT DESERVE THE ONE SKULL REVIEW I GAVE IT,” one user named MadamHawkes wrote. “WHAT IS SCARY ABOUT THIS FILM IS THE MONEY AND TIME WASTED.”

With a three skull average rating on Shudder, it’s clear that Skinamarink is a movie that you either love or hate upon watching. Now that the movie is on Tubi, you can decide for yourself too.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!

7 Movies to Watch After I Saw the TV Glow