Trivia / Skinamarink

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• Content Leak: The film was originally limited to a film festival circuit mid-2022, but one of the festival platforms offering at-home viewings accidentally allowed the digital file to be downloaded, causing many to circulate the entire film on YouTube and several excerpts on TikTok and Reddit before the film's wide release in January 2023. Kyle Edward Ball reported having a multi-week "total emotional meltdown" from this, fearing it would cost him his deals for wider distribution, though fortunately this didn't come to pass (at the worst, Shudder moved their release up by a few months).
• Deleted Scene: Quite a few:
  • In the original script, during the first scene implied to feature it, Kevin asked The Entity "Are you a power ranger?"
  • When Kevin and Kaylee originally discover that the windows and doors out of the house have vanished, they were supposed to go to the kitchen and grab knives to stab at the walls in an attempt to escape. Ball's stated reason to delete the scene was simply "Nah."
  • Kevin and Kaylee were going to hug at one point. The actors portraying them, being very young in reality, refused to do so during the shoot.
  • Scenes were shot in the kitchen which were taken out because Ball decided in post-production that due to remodeling that had taken place since the 1990s, the kitchen looked too modern and he couldn't edit the footage in a way to disguise this.
• Descended Creator: Kyle Edward Ball revealed on the commentary track that he voiced The Entity and the Emergency Dispatcher.
• Hey, It's That Sound!: The line “In this house” that’s repeated throughout the trailer is from a banned version of a trailer for The Exorcist.
• In Memoriam: The opening (and only) credits end with a dedication to assistant director Joshua Bookhalter, who passed away unexpectedly shortly after filming wrapped up.
• I Just Write the Thing: On the commentary track, Edward Ball says, “If anyone wants to know whether he actually called a 911 operator or it’s the monster, the answer is I won’t tell you because I don’t know. That’s a you problem, audience, not me!”
• No Budget: The film has a grand total budget of only $15,000, including advertising and post-production. Even The Blair Witch Project looks pretty pricey compared to that, and that came out more than 20 years earlier. While Blair Witch had a running budget of around $35,000, this jumped to about $500,000 when ads and post-production were included (with some estimates putting it at around $750,000). As such, Skinamarink having such a low budget means that its box office return of over two million dollars earned it a tidy profit.
• Real-Life Relative: Lucas Paul who played Kevin, and Ross Paul, who played the dad, are son and father in real life.
• Shrug of God: Kyle Edward Ball confirmed that there is a fully cohesive story that was used to map out the film, determining what was meant to be shown and why, but he's chosen to not to share it as he feels it's more important for the audience to assess the film on their own and come to their own conclusions. The closest hint he's given is saying, "If people pay attention, they see it's basically a Hansel and Gretel story."
• Troubled Production: Post-production of the film briefly stumbled following the sudden death of assistant director and friend to Kyle Edward Ball, Joshua Bookhalter. On top of the emotional turmoil, the movie's audio was kept on Bookhalter's computer, and Ball was unsure on whether or not it should have been left alone (necessitating redoing all the audio from scratch), settling on giving his family the proper time to grieve before requesting access (which was fortunately granted). The film's credits reserve an entire card for Bookhalter, stating with no uncertainty that the film would not have been complete without him.

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