Does the West need to be quicker on the draw?
Before the magazine was no more, I did a bit of film reviewing for John Gilbert' Fear Magazine. One of the articles I wrote had a look at animation in horror films. Below, with the permission of John, is the article in full. Hopefully some new films for people to discover and old favourites to be reacquainted with.
A few years after both Watership
Down and The Lord of the Rings we were presented with Jimmy Murakami’s
adaptation of Raymond Briggs’ graphic novel When The Wind Blows. This was back
in an age where the fear of nuclear war felt omnipresent and when films like
the grim (but unanimated) Threads would be shown in schools up and down the
country as educational pieces. Set in rural Sussex, When The Wind Blows presents
us with a naïve elderly couple who can readily be described as quaint in their
approach to the oncoming destruction (one scene has the wife, Hilda, rushing to
get the washing in as the three minute warning sounds). There is almost a charm
to the film, as much as there can be for one dealing with nuclear holocaust,
filmed in similar style to the likes of The Snowman and Father Christmas (both
Briggs again with the former also directed by Murakami). Surprisingly, When The
Wind Blows carries a PG rating in spite of the stark reality of radiation
sickness and the inevitability of the storyline.
Carrol’s masterpiece and features
a taxidermed rabbit who leads Alice into misadventures where she meets a whole
gamut of bizarre beasties along the way. I thought it excellent but was more
taken with another of Švankmajer’s films called Otesánek (Little Otik). Little
Otik was made with his wife Eva, as was Alice, and is a glorious example of how
the use of stop-motion animation can work within a film shot in ‘real life’.
Little Otik tells the story of a childless couple who create a child from a
tree stump. However, the child needs feeding and it has a taste for the
family’s neighbours. There is a deliciously dark humour running throughout
Little Otik and Švankmajer does a superb job of creating perhaps the most disturbing
baby since Eraserhead and one you end up rooting for, if you will forgive the
pun, as his demise begins to seem apparent. Both films are to be highly
recommended.
For something more stylish and
chilling then Fear(s) of the Dark (2007) is an excellent French horror
anthology. The film boasts six different directors: Blutch, Charles Burns,
Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti and Richard McGuire. This mix
of directors gives us different styles in this largely black and white
offering. In the film we meet a man who collected insects as a child, a
Japanese girl bullied by her classmates, a mysterious beast brings death to a
village and a man fleeing a snowstorm seeks safety in a spooky house. All these
stories are interspersed by an aristocrat out hunting with his dogs and the
voice of a woman talking about her fears. Worth seeking out for those who like
a quieter horror and the fifth story is one of the tensest pieces I’ve seen on
screen in a long while.
Ever since I was a kid I have loved animated films. And it’s
not just me. You simply need to look at the money taken by smash hits such as the
Toy Story, Shrek, Despicable Me, and Madagascar franchises as well as the likes
of Frozen, Cars, A Bug’s Life, Antz, The Lego Movie and so on and on and on. Going
back into the history of cinema we have a dominance of Disney in the box office
from Bambi, Pinocchio and Cinderella through to the Lion King, Aladdin and The
Little Mermaid alongside other animated films from Europe such as a spate of
Asterix films and Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin. Millions and millions spent to entertain us. The
target audience for these films is predominantly children with the right mix of
content to keep parents engaged too. Yet where is the darker side of this
painted cinematic world? What is out there purely for an adult audience? Where
are the terrors which come to life from the skill of the artist’s pen in
celluloid framed glory?
A quick look on IMDB under horror
will suggest 5,545 animated horror films with a further quick look showing that
a lot of those are either shorts, TV series, Japanese or a combination. As with
a lot of things horror, Japan latched on to this idea and has run with it in a
unique and wonderful style. I remember first coming across Japanese animation in
the 90s whilst working out how to navigate the social interactions of
university campus life. A friend of mine was heavily into anime and introduced
me to a plethora of films which pulsed with life in their exaggerated fashion. Some
films people may be familiar with are Perfect Blue, Blood: The Last Vampire,
Vampire Hunter D and Demon City. Now several years later I came to pondering
why this visibility in the Japanese market hasn’t translated itself to the
Western world. Therefore I decided to spend the last few weeks seeing how
prevalent animated horror films are on this side of the globe.
Over here you might think that
animation is solely a gateway drug to get children into horror though I suspect
the influence would more likely come from online games nowadays. Kids’ horror
films do great business. If you don’t believe me then look at the figures below
from a small selection:
The Nightmare Before Christmas
(33rd highest ranked film for worldwide box office in 1993)
The Corpse Bride (Budget $30
million, sales $114 million)
Hotel Transylvania (Budget $85
million, sales $470 million)
Frankenweenie (Budget $39
million, sales $106 million)
Monster House (Budget $75
million, sales $218 million)
(Source: The Numbers.com)
And this ignores the behemoth
which is Scooby Doo with its massive horror traits. To this day I swear they
paid homage to The Bird with the Crystal Plumage in an episode of Scooby Doo!
Mystery Incorporated.
Horror in children’s animation is
nothing new. These of you who grew up in the late seventies or early eighties will
invariably have been scarred by the images of General Woundwort ripping out
throats in Watership Down combined with the more spectral imagery of the black
rabbit El-ahrairah. And though whilst firmly in the fantasy camp, it would be
impossible not to mention Ralph Bakshi’s incomplete telling of The Lord of the
Rings whose raw animation style through the use of Rotoscoping made for a dark
and gruesome film at times.

Nuclear war is also the subject
of Peter and Joan Foldes' short animation from 1956 A Short Vision. In a little
over six minutes we are given a brutal, bleak, matter-of-fact depiction of what
happens when the bomb drops: “Their leaders looked up, their wise men looked
up, but it was too late.” Originally funded by a BFI Development Fund, A Short Vision can be found online as part of the BFI National Archive. And as we’re
discussing war films, let’s give a little nod to Ray Harryhausen who was chief
animator on Tulips Shall Grow (1942), a short animated film set in Holland. A
Dutch boy and girl’s lives are ruined when Nazi-like creatures called
Screwballs lay waste to their land but redemption is on hand. If we were to
focus more on science fiction and fantasy then a whole section could be given
up to the late, great Harryhausen who has rightly inspired and awed generations
of cinema-goers and filmmakers alike.
Speaking of science fiction, before
we move up the age ratings, it would be remise not to mention the work of René
Laloux. Back in 1973 he presented us with La Planète Sauvage (The Fantastic
Planet), a joint French/Czechoslovakian production. A film about oppression,
slavery and revolt with the humans (Oms) captive to their giant masters (the
Draags) on the planet Ygam. The film won the special jury prize at Cannes in
the year of its release. Perhaps lesser known is Laloux’s Franco-Hungarian film
called Les Maîtres du Temps (Time Masters) based on a novel by Stefan Wul and released
in 1982. French comic book artist Mœbius (who people will also know from his
work for Alien, Tron and The Abyss) provides the visuals for this clever futuristic
science fiction film which has some reasonably dark scenes for a children’s
film. Both films have stunning visuals which are worth the entrance price
alone.
So, what about the non-PG market?
Michael Gornick’s Creepshow 2
from 1987, a mixture of Stephen King’s works and George A. Romero’s screenplay,
brings us a trilogy of live action tales with animated interludes which follow
young Billy alongside Tom Savini’s The Creep though these pieces total little
more than six minutes of the film’s running time. Creepshow 2’s animation team
featured the talents of Rick Catizone, Gary Hartle and Phil Wilson. Tim
Burton’s Beetlejuice from 1988 brought us stop-motion animation sandworms
developed by Doug Beswick who was also involved with Evil Dead 2, where he
provided the stop-motion animation to bring to life Linda’s dancing corpse, as
well as a host of many more films everyone will be hugely familiar with.
Beetlejuice itself went on to spawn its own animated series running from 1989 –
1991 with an eye-popping 94 episodes as well as a video game and Burton clearly
continued with using animation in later films (see our list of children’s films
earlier).
Sticking with stop-motion, let’s
take a moment to look at the incredible work of Jan Švankmajer, a Czech
filmmaker and artist. His first theatrical release was a short film in 1964
called The Last Trick with over thirty more shorts and feature length films
made since then. His take on Alice in Wonderland entitled Něco z Alenky (Alice)
is a dark and surreal interpretation of Lewis

On to a cruder type of storyline.
In 2009 Rob Zombie gave unto us The Haunted World of El Superbeasto. The blurb
pitches this as ‘a washed-up luchador and a super-spy investigate Nazi zombies,
a nefarious scientist, and a stripper with a Satanic birthmark’. It falls under
the reasonably unique category of ‘adult animated exploitation musical black
comedy horror’. Personally, I only mention it here for a bit of completeness
but if it sounds like your thing then go check it out. Equally, if that does
sound like you then you may wish to view Hell and Back (2015), a Claymation comedy
featuring the vocal talents of Bob Odenkirk, Mila Kunis and Susan Sarandon. A
feature film where two best friends have to rescue their mate who is dragged to
hell. The jokes are puerile and not especially funny though it does feature
some great animation from production company Shadowmachine. It would be good if
both could have taken a leaf from the book of City of Rott (2006). While not
the greatest film ever made, City of Rott is a fun 2D animated zombie feature
which has the feel of an early nineties video game. A pensioner called Fred
braves the hordes of zombies in his town to go and get himself some loafers.
His companion is his metal walker which talks to him in his head and warns him
of danger. This is a work of love from Frank Sudol who was a one man production
machine having written, directed, animated, edited and voiced the entire piece.
At seventy-five minutes it does feel a bit overlong for the storyline but worth
a one-off watch for those seeking something a bit different in the zombie genre
– grab some mates plus some beverages of your choice and you could have some
fun with this splatterfest.

Another anthology film I would
give a nod to is Extraordinary Tales. Raul Garcia (who has worked on the likes
of The Lion King, Hercules and The Hunchback of Notre Dame) brings us a
collection of five stories based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Released in
2015, Extraordinary Tales features the vocal talents of Christopher Lee, Bela
Lugosi (taken from a recording in 1946), Julian Sands, Guillermo del Toro and
Roger Corman. We are treated to The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tale
Heart, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, The Pit and The Pendulum and The
Masque of the Red Death all depicted in differing animation styles. My
favourite was the starkness of The Tell-Tale Heart, drawn in the style of Uruguayan
born Argentine cartoonist Alberto Breccia and narrated by Lugosi. Other
adaptations of The Tell Tale Heart worth highlighting are a version from 1953narrated by the rich tones of James Mason and more recent version from this
decade by German animator Annette Jung which has a dark humour running through
the film. Both are under ten minutes in length and can be found quite readily
online.
And it was here my journey ended
for now in my brief foray to find what was out there. At this point I fear that
I have only scratched the surface of what Western animation has to offer to the
cinematic world of horror. There will undoubtedly be films I will kick myself
for missing off this list. I haven’t mentioned Dante’s Inferno: An Animated
Epic made by a mix of US and Japanese studios, I have overlooked the wonderful
‘9’, a delightfully dark science fiction affair about handstitched dolls come
to life in a world destroyed by war between robots and man, and I have completely
failed to mention the animated movies of the Hellboy franchise which I am sure
may be one of the more glaring omissions. This has been a whistle-stop tour and
there will be many others you, as readers, will be aghast have not been listed.
It strikes me that perhaps we should be seeing animation used more readily in
cinema horror releases than we do currently. I think it is a medium which has a
lot to offer. Over the past few weeks I have gazed with glee and awe at some of
the films I have watched, marvelling at the style and imagery to be found
therein. All I hope from this article is that I’ve highlighted a few treasures
people may not have been fully aware of and that maybe there’s an animator or
two reading this who may feel inspired to provide us with some new horrors on
the silver screen. In conclusion, the West has a lot to offer in the world of
animation and horror but it isn’t half hard to track down!
Thanks for the excellent survey. I'm an animation directer and producer of edgy material, but some of these recommendations are new even to me.
ReplyDeleteSorry, only just clocked your reply! Glad to have introduced you to some new stuff :-)
Delete