Writer and director Kyle Edward Ball has been attracting some buzz for his intriguing lo-fi horror film ‘Skinamarink’. Its atmosphere of midnight childhood dread, filmed with an old-school aesthetic, is nostalgic and unnerving. For all of its attention, both positive and negative, there doesn’t seem to be anything else quite like it.  

Although ‘Skinamarink’ doesn’t have an Australian release date yet, Kyle Edward Ball’s 2020 YouTube short film, ‘Heck’, operates in the same confines. To watch this short is to vividly recall the childhood fear we all shared, which is difficult to name but would reach a monstrous potency throughout endless sleepless nights. A boxy TV blaring in the dark, casting its lonely light on you and your scattered toys, was the only hope to ward off a gravitational pull into pure distress and helplessness.

What also makes ‘Heck’ incredibly effective as an unsettling horror piece is the strong undercurrent of abandonment. As an assortment of distorted imagery and sound unspools at a hypnotic pace, viewers are cruelly, expertly, struck with a couple of especially heartbreaking twists. If you’re having one of those restless nights and are game enough, give this unique horror short a whirl.