User Reviews

Raven's Hollow is set late one Halloween night as Billy (Gavin Philips) is sat in the back of a car at a drive-in, in the front seats his sister Lisa (Stephanie Pax) & her boyfriend Mike (Travis Worthy) kiss & fondle each other. Billy is bored & wants to go home & threatens to walk, outside near the drive-in Mike & Lisa stop him in front of a large cornfield. Mike says that the cornfield belonged to 'Farmer Blood' who buried those he killed there in order to make the corn grow, Billy doesn't believe him but Mike insist's that all three enter the cornfield to discover the truth...

Edited, co-written, co-produced & directed by Colin Clarke who also has a small role in the film as Stefan & is credited with the animation too Raven's Hollow is a ten minute animated horror short in the style of one of those segment's from an old horror anthology film. At only ten minutes long Raven's Hollow (which is a great title although neither Raven's nor Hollow's are referred to in the film itself) is short & to the point, it moves along briskly enough & although maybe the ending is a touch predictable it's a decent ride getting there & scarecrow's are always sort of creepy. The script also throw's in a few tricks like the old film within a film gag & a flashback that keeps things from getting too repetitive.

Obviously adult in nature Raven's Hollow has some profanity & some gore including strung up mutilated bodies. Unusually Raven's Hollow mixes traditional 2D comic book hand drawn style animation (although this was also probably animated on a computer) together with more recent 3D photo realistic CGI computer animation. I actually think the comic motion section looks better than the CGI but that will probably come down to personal preference. While the 3D CGI models are detailed the animation is a little awkward at times (for instance the shot where Mike is supposed to holding Lisa's should looks like is hand is just floating there). Overall though while it might be a little rough around the edges it's still fairly impressive & I am sure a lot hard work into making it.

Raven's Hollow was never going to challenge Pixar or the Toy Story films but it holds it's own & strange mix of styles of animation in the same film is unusual but one which is not entirely unsuccessful & I thought the effect was quite cool. Worth wasting ten minutes on, I liked it.

I caught a recent screening of Raven's Hollow at a local film fest. It headlined, and seemed to have a decent audience reaction. For an amateur film, it's not bad. It is CGI, which wasn't poorly done, but not exactly done well either. It was very reminiscent of playstation 2 graphics, or '90s CGI. Not great, but again, not a bad place to start. SPOILERS My main problem with Raven's Hollow is the complete lack of story. Essentially, it becomes a portfolio piece for animation due to the lack of attention to the script. It is about a kid who is told a ghost story, and then gets chased. Simple yes, and in most cases it would work. However, this film has the single most lazy ending I have ever seen. It appears that the filmmakers ran out of time, money, ideas, creativity, and sense when they thought "hey, let's just kill of the kid in splatter fashion." It brings no resolution whatsoever, and kills (pun intended) off any momentum it had.

Again, it was not a terrible first time effort, but it does become a lesson to filmmakers. Film is a storytelling medium. You can do cool tricks and make everything look pretty, but in the end, if you don't have a story to tell, your film will be trash.

One thing that I am not getting about the two reviews is stories done by them that serves as a better example of what great film-making should be. If you take a look at the credits of any major animated film that people seem to be using as a guide: it is a longer list than even live action feature films have. The fact Colin had managed to produce this on a home computer all by himself is nothing short of remarkable.

Additionally, it would be fairer to compare this animation with the three animation he has done prior. Raven looked a lot better than many things produced by Poser at the time. Raven 2 looked a lot better, so on so forth. With each animation, I am seeing great improvements in style and technique. As far as that portion of a storytelling medium, that is what is important.

I personally think the public is spoiled by the hyper-realistic results of CG. People expect that hyper-realism out of any animation project. What if Schindler's List was in color because people are used to color films. Would it have the same impact it did? Playing with different styles in the same medium is important for artistic quality rather than commercial.

Also saw "There was no resolution." The kid becomes part of the circle of life in the cornfield. That is the resolution. He walked in, and he died. I would actually prefer this type of resolution vs. "Good guy wins each and every time!" because it shakes things up.

To me, it wasn't a waste of 10 minutes. It was a nice exhibition of a different type of story.:)