The Best Jump Scare In Recent Memory Was Strategic Perfection

2023 featured several terrific horror movies, but "Skinamarink," Kyle Edward Ball's ultra-low budget indie that took the horror world by storm early in the year, was the most unconventional. Set in a suburban home in which the doors and windows suddenly vanish, the story (such as it is) focuses on two young children who are trapped in the house with a mysterious evil entity. The camera, often using locked-off shots, lingers on toys strewn about the floor, or light from the television set illuminating an otherwise darkened room. Characters speak in whispers when they speak at all. The movie is less concerned with plot than with capturing a very specific feeling: The lack of control audiences likely felt when they were young. Its glacial pace and lack of conventional structure turned off some audiences (myself included), but deeply impacted others who were slowly drawn in by the patient filmmaking and felt as if they were living through a childhood nightmare.

But one particular scare was just as effective for the haters as it was for those who were fully on the movie's wavelength: The phone jump scare, in which one of the characters' flashlights clicks onto the face of an old Fisher Price toy phone, hovers there for a while as the phone's eyes seems to be looking up at the character, and then, suddenly, the phone loudly rings as its eyes flick to stare down the barrel of the camera lens, penetrating the souls of audience members in the most unnerving way possible. 

And there's a reason that moment worked so perfectly.

"Skinamarink" should be studied for its restraint. Ball's vibes-first approach to making this movie resulted in an experiential marvel, and the very fact that the film was not full of wall-to-wall jump scares meant that when he finally did drop the hammer, it landed in a huge way and rattled audiences to their core. 

It's the same reason that jump scare in "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" works so well. You know the one: When Bilbo Baggins reaches out to try to take the One Ring back from Frodo. Not only are we not expecting something scary to happen in that moment, we're certainly not expecting something scary from that specific character. It's Bilbo! Our old pal! He wouldn't hurt his own relative! To see his face contort into a monstrous form and to get a glimpse at the corruption the Ring has wrought inside him is terrifying, and to see that simple Fisher Price toy phone contort in a similar way in "Skinamarink" has an equally unsettling effect.

We voted the phone jump scare as one of the 50 best movie moments of 2023 on the latest episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to below:

You can subscribe to /Film Daily on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and send your feedback, questions, comments, concerns, and mailbag topics to us at bpearson@slashfilm.com. Please leave your name and general geographic location in case we mention your e-mail on the show!