Judging by the viral noise on TikTok — a terrible way to live, IMHO — you’d expect the $15,000-funded Skinamarink to be the next Paranormal Activity. It’s not.

That’s not necessarily a negative. It all depends on the criterion being judged. To consider just the potential for word-of-mouth wildfire among the age groups reacting to its trailer on social media: Do you believe the average millennial or Gen Zer has the patience to sit through 100 minutes of an experimental film? Because that’s what Skinamarink is, one rung above pure abstraction. The majority of moviegoers of any generation don’t possess the palatability for something so mass audience-unfriendly; David Lynch’s Inland Empire finally can cede the title.

Again, not necessarily a negative. While clearly horror, the debut for Canadian filmmaker Kyle Edward Ball is the type of work that nearly defies criticism. Nothing about it operates by notions of convention, yet it represents a singular creative vision free of outside interference or concerns about commercial potential.

In 1995, two young siblings can’t locate their dad in the house. Stranger, the doors and windows — and even the commode — start to disappear; chairs sit on the ceiling. Thumps are heard, as is a disembodied, casually threatening voice. Sound scary? It should.

Through low angles, deliberate misframing and fuzzy imagery that simultaneously suggest surveillance footage and a pirate broadcast, Ball starts at a level of disorientation and builds trepidation from there. As the kids go about their mundane existence, no longer able to tell day from night, only the glow of the television — with its constant parade of public-domain cartoons — offers any comfort (not that “Cobweb Hotel” does). Jolts of terror disrupt that semblance of normalcy.

Ball’s lo-fi aesthetic extends to the sound, humming with the warm pop of vinyl. On its own, that aural element could offer womb-like comfort, but contributing to a whole, it helps make Skinamarink the closest approximation of a dream a feature has achieved. This is no catalog of jump scares; it’s art. —Rod Lott

Since childhood, I’ve admired the concept of the advent calendar more than using one — a case of each door revealing “That’s it?”-level disappointment after so much buildup. That feeling extends to Deathcember, a festive horror anthology constructed as such a calendar, with a short from a different director (Ruggero Deodato, Lucky McKee and Trent Haaga the most recognizable) waiting behind each of 24 numbered items in a 3-D environment.

The stories actually number more than two dozen if you count those nestled within the end credits, so Deathcember even betrays its own approach. It’s not like the Dominic Saxl-conceived collection faced a Sophie’s Choice of inclusion, because so few segments register as entertaining.

I counted three that do. The comedic “All Sales Fatal” pits a meek store clerk against an entitled customer (B-movie royalty Tiffany Shepis, Victor Crowley) attempting to return an item without a receipt. “December the 19th” pays homage to the ’80s slasher with gory results at an ice-skating rink. And putting a Santa spin on Reservoir Dogs is “X-mas on Fire”; cleverly, the jewelry heist leader is played by Steven E. de Souza, co-writer of the classic Christmas movie Die Hard.

On the spectrum’s other end sits “Aurora,” a pointless slice of sci-fi seemingly taken from a video game trailer. While “Crappy Christmas: Operation Christ Child” consists of wonderfully done stop-motion animation, it does so to depict clergy members repeatedly raping a young turd (yes, “turd,” not “turk”). Ha-ha?

Commendably, the movie’s two and a half hours run the gamut of genres, from the giallo and a rape revenger to a black-and-white Western and a silent Hunchback of Notre Dame parody. With so many tries at bat, it’s improbable for every piece to succeed, but it’s not out of the question to expect more hits than misses (as The ABCs of Death and its sequel achieved). And yet, a wide majority of Deathcember’s doors ring empty, either lacking a payoff, misjudging their scope or failing to tell a story at all. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

In the late 17th century, Godfried Schalcken toiled as a painter of candlelit portraits. In 1839, lesbian vampire creator Sheridan Le Fanu cast the then-deceased artist as the protagonist of a ghost story. And in 1979, the BBC adapted the tale into the hourlong made-for-TV movie Schalcken the Painter.

While Schalcken (Jeremy Clyde, The Musketeer) serves an apprenticeship under Gerrit Dou (Maurice Denham, The Alphabet Murders), he also longs for the lovely petals and pistil of Dou’s niece, Rose (Cheryl Kennedy, The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins). As he pursues her hand in marriage, Schalcken is not without competition: an old guy (John Justin, Lisztomania) who looks suspiciously like a rotting corpse, albeit a wealthy one.

Written and directed by Leslie Megahey (The Advocate), the film looks appropriately stately and proper. Although elegant and elegiac, it moves at the pace of drying pigments. That renders the story as low-wattage as the candles Schalcken reproduces on canvas, with only the occasional beat of madness — too occasional, as my interest waned before evaporating.

In this spiritual realm, I believe the Beeb fares better with its Ghost Stories for Christmas. While Schalcken the Painter enjoys a reputation of admiration, it plays like Peter Greenaway were hired to helm an episode of Tales from the Darkside, which is to say the vision and execution are misaligned. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

From concept to execution, The Christmas Tapes could be titled V/H/S: XMAS. Whatever you think of that lo-fi horror anthology franchise is a reliable barometer of your reception to this well-stocked project of merriment, mischief, mayhem and murder.

On Christmas Eve, the camcorder-captured celebration of a white suburban family — the kind with “Live Laugh Love” signs in place of art — is interrupted by an unexpected visitor. It’s Geoff (a wonderful Greg Sestero, The Room), a “stranded” driver asking to use their phone. They oblige.

Mere minutes later, Geoff has the clan at gunpoint, forcing them to watch unsung Christmas movies he’s brought on VHS cassettes. Said “movies” are homemade … and suspiciously acquired. Luckily, the modern family still owns a player; otherwise, this framing device would be for naught.

Numbering four, they range from a vlogging couple’s camping trip gone bad after summoning a German scarecrow (with jump scares galore) to spouses spending their first holiday season in their newly purchased house (complete with unexplained occurrences). Sandwiched in between is a quick bit in the POV of someone who has to deliver a package before a literally explosive deadline.

The best present of all finds a well-meaning dad (Jason Kuykendall) shipping an oversized gift box to his kids. Its contents: himself! To heighten the Christmas spirit, he hires a Santa to truck him there; unfortunately, this Kris Kringle (Vernon Wells, The Road Warrior) veers from the plan.

Although the aforementioned haunted-house segment allows Dave Sheridan (Scary Movie’s Doofie) to improvise a little too long, The Christmas Tapes satisfies as a maniacal party mix of playful terror and dark humor. The framing device holds its own as a story, too. My Christmas wish is for Sestero to again reunite with his Infrared directing duo for another dip into Geoff’s bag of found-footage tricks. —Rod Lott

Fresh out of college, California girl Meagen Mullen (Katarina Hughes, Pretty Problems) heads for the East Coast for a teaching job. Separated from her friends and family, Meagen starts a video diary, capturing her showing off her apartment, talking on the phone, fucking around with a Ouija board.

Then inexplicable things start to happen … except they are explicable, given the Ouija board and the hence-the-title murder of a woman named April in the place six months prior. With no suspects, the case has gone cold … and straight into a case of possession!

Although no found-footage landmark, The Death of April is better-acted than the horror subgenre is used to. Hughes seems cast from the Katie Holmes mold, with solid support from Adam Lowder as Meagen’s loving brother and Rent-a-Pal’s Amy Rutledge in a small, but pivotal role. As writer and director, Ruben Rodriguez (The Portal) in particular nails the interstitial talking-head interviews, lending these portions a patina of authenticity similar movies struggle to fake. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.