The Spine of Night Directors on Horror Fiction Inspirations and the Freedom of Independent Animation
Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King’s The Spine of Night is an impassioned tribute to adult animation, dark fantasy, and truly ambitious genre epics of the type all too rarely seen on the silver screen.
“One thing is certain about The Spine of Night: this is a labor of bone-shattered, triptacular love, “I said in my review. “The new rotoscope-animated feature—a clearly adoring homage to Ralph Bakshi, Heavy Metal, and 1980s dark fantasy—was created over a span of seven years by a minuscule team of animators digitally painting frame-by-frame with the oversight of directors Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King. It’s a deathly earnest film––like George Lucas-caliber earnest––guts-filled with capital-l lore, grim violence, artful nudity, and portentous monologues––not-always-convincingly delivered by a vocal cast that includes Lucy Lawless and Patton Oswalt––that never dare consciously wink at the intrinsic camp of its culty-retro throwback venue.
“One thing is certain about The Spine of Night: this is a labor of bone-shattered, triptacular love, “I said in my review. “The new rotoscope-animated feature—a clearly adoring homage to Ralph Bakshi, Heavy Metal, and 1980s dark fantasy—was created over a span of seven years by a minuscule team of animators digitally painting frame-by-frame with the oversight of directors Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King. It’s a deathly earnest film––like George Lucas-caliber earnest––guts-filled with capital-l lore, grim violence, artful nudity, and portentous monologues––not-always-convincingly delivered by a vocal cast that includes Lucy Lawless and Patton Oswalt––that never dare consciously wink at the intrinsic camp of its culty-retro throwback venue.
- 11/17/2021
- by Eli Friedberg
- The Film Stage
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