The Other Side of Animation 250: The House Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com/camseyeview. It would help support my work, and keeps the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

It’s 2022, and we are still in January, which is a noted dump month for a bunch of films that eitherHollywood doesn’t mind losing money on, or are hoping that they can offer something to moviegoers who aren’t interested in the award season fodder that gets released. Thankfully, with the advent of streaming and streaming services that are more willing to be experimental and offer distinct experiences, January is no longer the worst month of the year. Granted, bad movies are still going to get dumped into January, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. Luckily, we have something like the incredible anthology film that they originally marketed as a limited series with Netflix’s The House. 

The three shorts are directed by three sets of directors. The first short, And heard within, a lie is spun, is directed by  Marc James Roels & Emma De Swaef. It’s about a family who lives in a small humble home where the dad is tired of being judged for being poor. One dark night, he meets a client who is willing to offer him and his family a nice fancy house with no real hang-ups. Well, at first. The second short, Then lost is truth that can’t be won, which is directed by Niki Lindroth Von Bahr, it’s about a mouse that is trying to sell a house that he is refurbishing. Nothing is looking great until he catches the attention of a fairly odd couple. The final short, Listen again and seek the sun, is directed by Paloma Baeza, and is about a cat who owns the titular house in a world that has been flooded and is trying to refurbish it while the water is rising and to soon engulf the house. On top of tenants that don’t properly pay, a new arrival to the house sets things up for something life-changing. 

One of the fun aspects of seeing this anthology film is how distinct it is from other horror films. We have seen anthology films in horror and live-action, but when do we ever get horror animated features that aren’t Halloween specials made for families? It’s one of the few examples of animation that is aimed at adults that isn’t hyper-violent. Now, before walking into this film that was for some reason marketed as a limited series, there is something you should know. This is not a traditional horror film with jumpscares or hyper-violence. Some have said that this would be a stop-motion horror film by the ways of what A24 likes to distribute, and, well, that’s not wrong. The horror here does have some genuine scares, but consider this the category of scares that get under your skin and are more metaphorical. The stories deal with obsession, depression, abandonment, gentrification, and other themes that are woven throughout the three stories, and each one is consistently unnerving to sit through. It gets you in the same way the paranoia in John Carpenter’s The Thing or Ari Aster’s Midsommar hits you when you realize something is extremely off about the situations in each of the stories. Why did this family get such a nice house? Who is the odd couple interested in buying the house? What is really going on with the landlord of the house? What mysteries are there in this setting? If that’s the type of horror for you, then this film will absolutely click with you. It can even be somewhat funny and extremely heartwarming at times. It depends on the story you are watching, of course. 

Animation-wise, it’s stop motion! It’s extremely fun and impressive to see studios and teams still making films with an art style that is costly and time-consuming, which is what most studios are allergic to. The first short uses the duo director’s iconic use of felt-like humans with very round heads and tiny faces. Even with such distinct designs, the horror and atmosphere doesn’t feel distracting. The other two use fur and designs that will be familiar to viewers who have seen the stop-motion short The Burden, or if you have seen any Wes Anderson stop-motion films. The voice cast is also rather good with a few big names, but it was never a huge marketing point. You do have Helena  Bonham Carter, Mathew Goode, Paul Kaye, Claudie Blakley, Mia Goth, Mark Heap, Miranda Richardson, Josh McGuire, Stephanie Cole, Jarvis Cocker, Dizzee Rascal, Yvonne Lombard, Sven Wollter, Tommy Hibbits, Ayesha Antoine, Susie Wokoma, and Will Sharpe. The music by Gustavo Santaolalla is delightfully creepy, unsetting, but also ethereal and emotional. He also helped compose the music for The Book of Life, Narcos: Mexico, The Last of Us Part 1 and Part 2, Finch, and Maya and The Three. 

Despite being a sort of “you have to be in this mood” horror film, and the confusion as to why they marketed this as a limited series rather than a film has never been fully explained, The House is 2022’s first big animated hit. It’s an incredible experience that if you are a fan of animation, you should absolutely check out this film! Granted, this is absolutely not for kids. Not to say they probably couldn’t handle it, but they will either be terrified or really bored. If you like horror films that are more akin to the A24-distributed types, then you will love this film. If you are more akin to the Blumhouse or more mainstream crowd-pleasing horror, then you will also probably like it! There is room for both hyper-violent and jump-scare-driven horror and more methodical horror. At the end of the day, it all comes down with how you execute it. Now then, next time, we will be looking at the best animated film of 2021 with Mamoru Hosoda’s Belle. 

Thanks for reading the review! I hope you all enjoyed reading it! If you would like to support my work, make sure to share it out, and if you want to become a Patreon supporter, then you can go to patreon.com/camseyeview. I will see you all next time!

Rating: Go See It!

The Other Side of Animation 142: The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com/camseyeview. It would help support my work, and keeps the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

Comedy is probably the most consistent genre that animation is saddled with in the mainstream market area. It’s not like that’s a bad thing, to be honest. Comedy lends itself very well to animation, since you have full control of any kind of comedy that you want to do, from physical comedy to visual gags. As much as live-action can do great comedy, it’s limited by the fact that you can do more with animation. Unfortunately, comedic animation, unless you are Warner Bros., simply means fast movements and not much else. I think a lot of US animation studios wanting to make a comedy should look at Benjamin Renner’s The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales. Distributed by GKids here in the states, and originally a planned trio of TV specials, The Big Bad Fox was one of the films I was super excited to see. Probably for understandable reasons, it took forever to finally see this movie, and I’m happy to say, that the year-long wait was worth it. Let’s quickly dive in, and get on with this comedic masterpiece.

The story revolves around three plays! The first story focuses on Rabbit, dubbed by Adrian Edmondson, and Duck, dubbed by Bill Bailey. The two are sent on an adventure to deliver a baby, when a stork crashes into a tree. Unfortunately, Duck and Rabbit are not the brightest bulbs, and Pig, dubbed by Justin Edwards, must go along to make sure the baby gets to where it needs to go. The second story revolves around Fox, dubbed by Giles New, who wants to be big and tough, but constantly fails to get a chicken to eat. After getting some help from Wolf, dubbed by Matthew Goode, Fox ends up with three eggs that hatch, and the chicks think that Fox is their mother. The final story centers around Duck and Rabbit thinking that they accidentally killed Santa Claus, and go on an adventure with Pig to save Christmas!

There has been a lot of great comedies this year that have made my sides split, including Game Night, The Death of Stalin, and Blockers. However, I think The Big Bad Fox has the best comedy out of any film in 2018. Why? Because it knows what makes comedy work. Sure, it has plenty of physical gags, but the writing is also very witty, grounded, and just the right amount of sass that makes these talking farm animals feel real. Although, I have to say, the physical comedy in this film is really funny. It’s not too cartoonish or fast. It’s the right pace that you would see in Animaniacs or the old Looney Toons shorts. You can see the control the animators had over the movements that made, quite honestly, every joke land. It’s rare when a joke will land time after time after time. I think it’s because the jokes that you see in this film are pretty universal. It’s not full of gross-out humor, its dialogue is not meant to shock for shock’s sake, like Paradise P.D., and you can tell that they were careful with picking out each and every joke. Of course, good jokes wouldn’t work unless the characters did as well. While this is definitely not a story-driven experience, I still found myself loving the strictness of Pig, the wimpy demeanor of Fox, the silly goofiness of Duck and Rabbit, and the laziness of Dog. They still have moments where they change as characters, and do grow.

In terms of the animation, it’s beautiful. The same 2D-flash watercolor look from the director’s previous film gels so well. Sure, you can see multiple lines on the characters not linking to one another, but Renner’s style has always been fast, and you get the overall point. The children’s book-style look fits the stories that are told for this film. The animation is still expressive, snappy, and wonderful to look at. In terms of the voice cast, while I wish they could have gotten actors like Bobby Moynihan and Steve Blum to play certain characters, I do think the British cast was the right choice. Sure, the trailer with the English dub on it doesn’t give off the best impression, but while watching the movie, it’s pretty well synced. I can maybe say one small moment where the lips and the dialogue might not match, but it’s more of an animation issue than the script.

Really, the biggest gripe I have with the film is that, while I love the play aspect, I do wish they had found a better way to weave the story together. You see these characters all the time, but due to how this was originally supposed to be three TV specials, there is nothing truly connecting one story to the other. Some characters don’t even appear in the other stories. Also, for a film called The Big Bad Fox, his story is set in the middle of the film. I guess it’s to break the pacing of the two other stories revolving around Rabbit, Duck, and Pig, but it is odd that there wasn’t a different name to the overall film. Then again, it’s based off of Renner’s graphic novel of the same name, and honestly, at this point, I’m nitpicking.

While it might not be as emotionally in-depth as Ernest & Celestine, The Big Bad Fox is still an amazing movie! It’s easily the best comedy of 2018, and one of the best animated features of this year. I luckily got to see this at an advance screening, and it will be going through a limited release on October 19th, so keep an eye out for a release in your neck of the woods. If you can’t see it, buy it on DVD. The wait was worth it, and I’m happy with that. Since it’s now October, it’s time to look at something that has more of an edge to it, and maybe, be one of the most entertaining animated flicks of 2018 with Ruben Brandt Collector. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the review, and I will see you all next time.

Rating: Criterion/Essentials