As the 21st century seemingly trudges onward on its downward path, I appreciate even more the artists who bring to life dark oneiric experiences on-screen. Here are some favorites.
The Hyperboreans (2024, dir. Cristóbal León/Joaquín Cociña)
The León/Cociña team needs no introduction to most readers of this blog, after their masterpiece The Wolf House (2018). Their latest feature is lighter in tone than The Wolf House, and uses a wider range of animation techniques and visual artifacts to explore aspects of Chile’s recent fraught history. Sometime DL Nate Dorr/Rock Hyrax’s review on letterboxd has his usual detailed overview and thoughtful analysis.
This has not received widespread distribution, but here are a couple streaming options.
Los Huesos/The Bones (2021, dir. Cristóbal León/Joaquín Cociña)
León and Cociña have made some terrific shorts; this is probably my favorite. Los Huesos comments on Chilean history, conjuring up a disorienting and elegiac weave of events. The elegant puppetry/animation and use of fire and simple special effects work beautifully with the scratchy soundtrack.
A couple gorgeous early shorts: Lucia and Luis.
Bestia (2021, dir. Hugo Covarrubias)
Another disturbing and thought-provoking Chilean project, that references its violent past. (BeBraveMorvern gives more context in his letterboxd review here.) The sets are obsessively detailed, and the body language of the puppets is beautifully realized. Covarrubias sustains an unbearable level of menace throughout, despite most of the horrific events being kept offstage.
Available here, and also on Kanopy.
Blood Tea and Red String (2006, dir. Christiane Cegavske)
A dream-like, sometimes absurd take on fairy-tale tropes, a paw always dipping into cruelty and violence. The expressive body language of the creatures is beautifully rendered; limbs are always at natural angles, and the hands grasp, point and gesticulate beautifully, as the conflict progresses relentlessly.
Three Fragments of a Lost Tale (2011, dir. John Frame)
Sculptor and photographer John Frame builds exquisite articulated figures and sets for operas. This is an excerpt from a longer film project, that seems sadly to have languished. Parallels with Brothers Quay of course, with the cinematic use of the camera. Frame’s puppets have highly detailed articulations with lovingly detailed hands, resulting in beautiful organic poses and motion. He also wrote the music.
Woman who Stole Fingers (2010, dir. Saori Shiroki)
I really like Shiroki’s scratchy drawing style with woodcut-like textures. The child-like narrative just slides effortlessly into nightmarish territory.
The Present (2013, dir. Joe Hsieh)
Taiwanese animator Joe Hsieh also works in a 2D hand-drawn/painted style, with more conventional storylines that develop surprising arcs and over-the-top flourishes (he is a fan of Pedro Almodovar). My favorite is The Present, with the little narrative slippages building towards the excessive culmination.
Recent interview with Hsieh here.
Night Bus (2013, dir. Joe Hsieh)
Hsieh seems to have developed a more slick look in subsequent films. Night Bus is much lighter, but still arch, gleeful, and outrageous.
Hsieh’s latest, Praying Mantis, has received a lot of buzz. It is about “a half-insect prostitute that lures johns to her home to feed to her half-insect child”. I have not been able to track down a copy yet.
Mad God (2021, dir. Phil Tippett)
Mad God probably needs little introduction here either. The visuals are absolutely spectacular, with the shifts in scale and perspective, and play with light and shadow. I had to be impressed, despite my reservations with other aspects.
Bobby Yeah (2021, dir. Robert Morgan)
Robert Morgan can also indulge in gross and outrageous gestures, though on a smaller scale. His technique and attention to detail here is impressive, with atmospheric lighting effects, the organic-looking skin tone of his characters, and the inventive ways he has with body fluids. His masterful control of pacing and comic (!) timing elevates this above an exercise in excess. There are surreal explosions of grotesque forms and transformations, with details that one might perversely interpret as “cute”.
The Cat with Hands (2001, dir. Robert Morgan)
Morgan’s much earlier The Cat with Hands is a different animal. Suggestive disturbing visuals, quirky soundtrack, pervasive quiet unease.
Stopmotion (2023, dir. Robert Morgan)
Morgan’s first feature offers a fictionalized peek behind the animator’s curtain.
More on Robert Morgan’s Vimeo site.
S He (2018, dir. Shengwei Zhou)
Finally, one of the strangest and most riveting animation features I’ve come across in ages. Set in a world where male shoes dominate and abuse female shoes, the visuals are consistently bizarre and inventive. The organic and mechanical forms are constantly twitching and evolving, and I love effective use of lighting and camera, and stellar sound design.
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p.s. Hey. This weekend the singular sound/visual artist and longtime major figure of this blog Bill Hsu has put together a personal overview of Dark Animations for us. Lots of possible revelations in there, at least if you’re not a closer follower of the genre like me. Please accept your enjoyment. And thank you so much, Bill. Such a total treat. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Yep, yep, agree, agree. I tend to relegate those kinds of movies to plane flights wherein I just want tech-y distraction, but, even so, either get original and daring or don’t, you know? Right, your bro is in Hungary. Well, it must’ve been nice to celebrate another year of life in that upswinging context. Love could make so money with that invention if he needed money which I assume, being love, he doesn’t. Love giving an assassin the power of invisibility and sending him to Washington, DC, G. ** jay, Hey, hey, jay. Thanks re: the visual/sound highlights. Conlon Nancarrow … no, I don’t think I know that work. I’ll cue up the name in google and get educated. Thank you! As always, I will take your word on ‘Swann in Love’, haha. But you are almost cracking my resolve. Holiday! Where? When? Ooh, amazing. ** Adem Berbic, I saw your launch announcement on Insta. Good going. Interesting, you might have just found the key to understanding the mystery at the heart (head?) of Deleuze. Amsterdam … well, you want to stay somewhere in the center. It has sort of gentrified to the point where I don’t know exactly where’s tony and where’s as yet undiscovered by the moneyed these days. Throw out some options and I can try to piece through them knowledgeably. ** Sam F, Hi, Sam! Welcome into the machinery, maestro! Thank you for acing the blog’s lock. Nice associative notes. I’m going to double expose those with my mental notes. I wish I could set foot into your launches. Especially in Baltimore. I was there last year to show RT at a festival, and I really, really liked that city. You have the weekend of weekends. ** CS, You could do a life cast of the tree part and make an exact chocolate replica, but then what would do with that other than just predictably eat it. Hm, I see your conundrum. Drinking coffee can make almost anything interesting? ‘un siècle d’écrivains’, cool, I’ll search. Where do you live? Sorry if you already said. I am only half-coffeed at the moment. It’s never the end times. That’s my theory after living through years of various doomy situations. But then I guess that attitude makes me very vulnerable. At least you have your publisher. Big weekend of some incredible sort. ** _Black_Acrylic, Haha. ** Bill, First, thank you a ton again ‘in person’ for what’s up above! I didn’t stumble across that block, sadly. Oh, I don’t know of Ostertag’s books, actually. Huh. I’ll go hunt down what I can find of them. They sound, well, curious. Enjoy the weekend that you are kind of lording over. ** Carsten, I’ve heard those drums. Very trippy. Not as trippy as those poor dogs who are taught to try to pronounce human words, but not as deeply disturbing. Paris-wise, just as close to the center as you can get. Are you doing a hotel or AirBNB or … ? ** Steve, My faves post will launch a week from today. The last time I watched ‘Lost Highway’ I decided that if Lynch had edited out two scenes, it would be a great film. One being the pointless Marilyn Manson scene, and I can’t remember the other one. I would hesitate to call Houellebecq a French philosopher, but, otherwise, yes. ** tom, Hi, tom. I don’t give out my email here anymore after some weird stuff happened, but you can write to me on Instagram or Facebook, if that works? Sorry. I’m interested to hear. Thanks. ** HaRpEr //, Luck with Hobart, of course, and maybe even more so with the new fiction piece. I envy your fiery inspiration. Yeah, ‘SotE’ is crazy great. Amazement that you have a dad who read ‘SotE’. See what you think of ‘Afternoons of Solitude’. I think it’s about 30 minutes too long, but it’s pretty great. ** laura w, It’s a bit addictive — sound art — if I’m any indication. ‘Sinners’, yes. I thought that for a kind of horror adjacent fairly mainstream film, it was quite good. See what you think. No enlightenment here whatsoever unless the enlightenment part is a slow burn, but I doubt that. I’m not much of an Edouard Louis fan. But, boy, people sure do think highly of him. I have vague hopes that I’ll get to go through NYC in October on my way to my annual home haunt exploring festivities in LA. Hope so. ** Thom, Hi! I never joined Twitter. Seems scary. A friend told me yesterday that Threads is even worse. I’ve never looked at it. Yay, for your friend, and thanks for intersecting my stuff with him. Holobiosis is almost born, whoa! That’s exiting! July, okay. I want to get one when it’s reality. Nice. Oh, thanks so much about the instructional thing. As I’ve probably said even too many times, I feel like all think about when I write is the formal and stylistic stuff. The content is just like the furnace inside the machinery for me. I encourage you to follow through on that public sound sculpture idea, obviously. I guess it would be hard to do, but so worth it. If I was there, I’d collaborate with you on it. For better or worse. Thanks, I have an angle on the weekend, and we’ll see if it pans out. Yours seems like it could be fraught in the best way. ** Uday, It wasn’t a fun bite. To me. I think my parents thought it was hilarious. It hurt, and I thought he was a bastard. But, hey, bygones and all of that, and RIP grandpa. I would have to go see what’s on UBU, but I would assume everything housed there is pretty top notch whether I personally like it or not. What’s your weekend? ** Right. Please luxuriate in Bill’s gift until further notice, meaning at least until Monday.
Now available in North America 
Hey Dennis. Cat with Hands looks amazing, absolutely watching that tonight. The cat puppet itself is really, really sweet. Stop-Motion was visually so, so cool too, but I have a huge resistance to “the protagonist was molested!” horror movie twists, so I felt the film itself was pretty poor. The images in the film were significantly scarier without any of the unsubtle attempts to situate them in a fictional context. It’s so unfortunate how many amazing artists get sub-let to work on really weak scripts, but at least it gives them way more reach than they normally would have.
Haha, yeah, my repeated mentions of Proust aren’t intended to wear you down into giving it a go, don’t worry. Conlan Nancarrow was (is?) a pianist who wrote un-playable pieces for the player piano that turn the piano into more of a percussion instrument than a melodic one. If you’ve ever seen those youtube videos of falling piano notes, with dozens of notes per second, it’s kind of similar to that, but a bit more experimental.
The holiday should be off the coast of France, which should be nice. It’s a full week off work, though, so we’ll see. I think their parents have a bit of a problem with me too, they’re sort of convinced I’m responsible for making them queer, or whatever. We’ll see, I guess, haha. Anyway, should be fun. Hope you’re well, see you!
Also, finished Flunker this evening, after finally getting my copy back. When you say Trou Francais was published as “French Hole”, was it all that French Hole entailed? No problem if you can’t remember/want to stay mysterious!
hi!
Feeling somewhat better today. Pretty sunny day. Still not sure what to do with the tree.
No, I didn’t tell you anything, even CS isn’t my name at all, it’s someone else’s. Though rather obviously I’m French. I’m on a French island right now.
That endtimes feeling I’ve had since I was, twelve, or ten years old, or sixteen. Maybe before I was born. I think vulnerability’s a very good thing.
I’ve seen Stopmotion already, good film. jay says there’s some trauma stuff in it but I honestly forgot and mostly remember the effects lol. I’ve heard ambiguous things about Mad God. Mostly, I’m afraid it’d be one of these movies I “respect” formally but feel nothing towards.
to anyone reading this, have a good weekend
It’s a pretty excellent series of guest posts being hoisted up into the spotlight lately. Thank you bountifully, Bill. The Blood Tea and Red String trailer made me want to cry which maybe means there’s something in this genre for me to unpick. I have to get back into some kind of habit of late-evening film consumption.
Yep, up it goes, and now obviously critiquing and second guessing and blah — I wonder whether my neuroses around this are of a normal, ‘you get used to it’ flavour, or not. They do seem to have a lot of tendrils and/or tentacles. When I sent James a draft of the post text he told me it was way too modest. For sure, people who are able to do this sort of stuff deftly seem like Martians to me. Probably I should just get a tattoo on my hand saying ‘no one really cares.’
Re: the key to Deleuze, do you mean the fear of the mentally ill or the judo? Re: Amsterdam, the sale ends proximately so I’ll consult with T double-proximately. My bank balance is wheezing post-Cannes and Paris, though, so we may need to downgrade our ambitions.
My goal for this weekend is, otherwise, to do extremely little: make food, finish a novel of T. Moore’s, think on the renewed sense of discontentment I’m feeling in London (not to sound like a broken record there), and scribble. What is/was the goal for yours?
Hey there, Dennis, Finally landing back here, though I’ve been peeking in as a lurker. Hope you’re doing great. I’ll be in Paris in Aug, so I hope our coffee date is still on? Fingers crossed we won’t be in Paris while it’s scorching, but if it is we’ll still be in Paris. Any absolute must-sees you recommend? I know at one point you mentioned to someone your favorite museum but I can’t recall. Need to get reservations or tickets or whatever in advance! Still eagerly waiting to see Pavement in July, consuming short books, etc. I liked The Dry Heart by Natalie Ginzburg. Now reading The Prague Orgy by Philip Roth. What are your thoughts on Kosinksi? I was on a Kosinski kick a few summers ago. Had never read him and didn’t know anything about his story until after. Aren’t you in a book group or something? What are you reading? Suggestions? Take care, Don
Dennis, thanks for the opportunity to share these recent favorites!
Hope you guys found something interesting in the post, Jay, CS and Adem. I agree Stopmotion is rather clunky; I would have left it out if I didn’t like the two shorts so much. Adem, let me know what you think of Blood Tea and Red String. The director is working on a new movie (I’m on her GoFundMe and get updates), but the way she works, it’s coming along really slowly.
Bill
@Bill-What a terrific day! I loved Joe Hsieh’s THE PRESENT – terrific combination of elegant artwork and looming menace. The care he puts into his films comes through. MAD GOD is a favorite, and I’ve been meaning to get around to THE HYBERBOREANS.
I had forgotten which scene Marilyn Manson appeared in LOST HIGHWAY, but when it got to that point, I know exactly what you mean. (Twiggy Ramirez as Porn Star #2!) Still, in a way the film’s darkness is enhanced by casting of more than one man who’s committed real-life violence.
How was your weekend? After several days in the 90s, tomorrow’s supposed to be more pleasant. I’m beginning to edit my next “Radio Not Radio” show. Next week will be quite busy – I’m seeing and reviewing both DISCLOSURE DAY and TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA.
Hi!!
Thank you so much for this post, Bill! I’m not at all familiar with dark animation. This was a total pleasure.
That’s a pretty good tactic – watching those types of movies on planes, where they can’t even try to hog your full attention.
My brother and I usually have those “So, how was your party?” “Good.” kind of conversations, haha, so I don’t know many details, but I think he had fun.
Sadly, I support love’s approach wholeheartedly at this point… Love being extremely proud of himself because he’s finally gone through all of his emails and texts and replied to every single one, Od.
@ Bill, thank you for this almighty guide to the world of Dark Animations! A new genre to me and I look forward to diving in.
So this week I’ve switched fragrance. Having spent 8 years wearing this CDG Blackpepper, I’ve invested in 100ml of CDG 2 Man. Worn this before many years ago but it’s still something of revelation to me. Despite its name the smell is rather more feminine than BP, more delicate and subtle. I get a dreamy candlewax here. Mum says candyfloss but I reckon her nose is not so reliably attuned to this kind of thing. Wish there was a better way to communicate this sensory stuff over the Internet but hey, maybe AI will solve the problem in the fullness of time?
Re. Paris: yeah I’m thinking hotel or Airbnb. You wouldn’t happen to know an affordable hotel where each room has a balcony? Neither Airbnb nor booking.com has a balcony search filter, which after doing some fruitless looking today is beginning to annoy me.
How was your weekend? Mine is very laid back, which I can use after last week. Hung out with some neighbors at a local café/bar the other night, & a table of six quickly ballooned into double that number, because more folks kept joining us. When these gatherings happen I usually stay for the first half or so, when most of them are still relatively fresh, because I’m the only non-drinker. Occasionally it’s interesting to observe drunks whilst sober yourself—kind of like an anthropological case study—but more often than not it gets boring, watching people get sloppy & repetitive. But non-alcoholic beer got quite tasty since I quit drinking (it used to be a horror ten years ago), so I’ve carved out my nook in the social cave. No nostalgia for the sauce, nor for sitting around till 3 am.
Also been exploring more of the uninhabited back country out here, which especially at dusk is quite a magical terrain. The landscape, soil & vegetation reminds me quite a bit of the SoCal desert. Might do some filming there for the poetry-film project.
Hi Carsten,
I don’t think the rooms have balconies, but this one hostel I go to whenever I’m there has a terraced balcony and is a pretty nice place with a metro stop right below. The People in Place de la Nation. You can get private rooms too.
good to know about sinners! maybe i will watch it though it’s equally likely that i won’t. who knows. i think i have too many dvds out from the library rn anyway.
i imagine it’s kind of hard to get away from edouard louis in france lol. i think he’s kind of a big deal there? i liked the end of eddy and the history of violence but his books don’t really stick in my brain and his last one feels the most obviously like he’s, uh, exploiting his working class family for money. he reminds me of a french ocean vuong but with less tortured prose.
on the plus plus side, i did really enjoy the new wayne koestenbaum! 400+ pages is a big committment for me these days but it was weird enough to keep me invested.
hope your weekend is going/went well! october is a good time to be in new york, i think…
At a sleepover with friends right now, feels odd to call it a sleepover at this age, and this post is very helpful for watch recs because they want horror but not real horror because it freaks them out. I’ve always found most conventional horror to be a bit boring, and usually watch other peoples’ reactions for entertainment rather than the film itself, so this works just fine for me. Thanks Bill!
Glad you guys enjoyed the post, Steve, Dominik, Ben and Uday. Happy to hear your enthusiasm for The Present. Hsieh is a pretty recent discovery for me, now I’m always on the lookout for his work. Any chance you’ll come across Praying Mantis soon? It’s doing the festival circuit. Look forward to your thoughts on Camp Miasma.
Uday, I also find most conventional horror movies to be boring!
Bill
Lincoln Center’s annual Asian film festival takes place this summer, and there’s a big horror festival in Brooklyn in September. Those would be the most likely places for a PRAYING MANTIS screening in New York, but nothing’s been announced yet.
Hey Dennis,
Can’t remember when I last commented, so I wouldn’t know where to search for what I last said or what you last replied. But how are you? Hope you’re good, and that the heat has died down compared to last week; it’s been a wet and windy week here. A busy week too, the busiest in a while. I watched Challengers for the first time recently as it was on TV and I was pretty underwhelmed. Felt all style and very little substance. Obviously a hot film, but there were a lot of shots and editing choices that made me roll my eyes. I remember there being similar sentiments from people with Queer, so I’m probably going to avoid that, or at least watch it if I feel in the mood to watch something I mightn’t enjoy.
Have you seen Backrooms or Obsession yet? I’ve been hearing (maybe too much) about constantly online, and will have to go see soon. I always appreciate whenever a horror movie is successful, especially original IPs and new and fresh talent. And as a Gen Z guy who grew up with a lot of fascination with internet horror on shit from YouTube, Reddit, and 4chan, I feel excitement to see these things be both legitimized and successful.
The art college here had their final year exhibition, which a few of my friends were involved in, so I got to go on Friday and probably again over the week. There’s this one art gallery here (with the same name as the school, Crawford) that’s been closed for the past year and will be for a while, and I do enjoy getting to experience art in person. And I try to always go to at least one gallery or museum whenever I’m in a city.
@ Bill I am always looking for interesting animations, so this was a life saver! The only one I have seen is ‘The Bones’, which did stick with me very viscerally. Right now I think I’m most interested in investigating Joe Hsieh. Thank you!
You passing reference reminded me that I insanely still haven’t seen a Brother’s Quay film. ‘Institute Benjamienta’ is high on my list as a Walser devotee.
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Yeah, I’m just always writing I guess. I’ve always had the tendency to keep moving, it never wears me out or anything, I just do it instinctually. It’s everything else in my life that I procrastinate. This story is me trying out some structural stuff that I want to do in the next book. I’ll see how it pans out.
I really did like ‘Afternoons of Solitude’ a lot. It felt like a rare and beautiful thing. I understand what you mean when you say it was about a half hour too long. There’s a point before the last fight where you say ‘okay, I see what you’re doing here’, because structurally it’s very rhythmic and repetitive (which I say as a compliment, if anything the repetition creates a mesmerizing effect). That said, the last fight was one of the best parts for me because the light was so beautiful and golden, and it’s difficult for me to say what should have been cut. It’s the sort of film that has a robust constraint and could theoretically go on indefinitely. It could be one hour, it could be three, because it has that structure of repetition. I’m sure it was difficult where to draw the line in the editing room.
Have you seen ‘Liberte’? I’d like to watch more Serra films and that one sticks out to me.
God I haven’t been having fun im supposed to have a vision or something and I keep hearing an alarm sometimes I have slight changes to make instead of massive ones and that’s way harder. Writing is really honest probably why i don’t do it very often. Heres a peak into my world formula as you know one of my voices is quite stark and less bright. (Potential means nothing when you don’t know what to do. Options become paralysis it’s not from fear or indecision. Each thing a choice options ripple like the flap of butterfly wings to a hurricane states and weeks later. Building motion unseen life lived things unsaid and only thought wishes die in the dark from lack of attention like popstars. If life is a mystery where are the puzzle pieces and what happens when you read the image the puzzle even makes if you finish it.)
Hey Dennis, hope the week is starting OK… Yes, I will make sure you get a copy of the inagural issue of Holobiosis, whats the best way to orchestrate gettin that to you, just message you elsewhere? Lemme know! Gonna be at the library tommorow formatting and making sure I can print it correctly hehe…
One of my suuuuuper cheap book spots in Portland came thru yet again and I got The Green Child and something else from Future Tense (short story collection called ‘Doll Head Eater’ does it ring a bell?) for 3 bucks each… not even a book store but thats where I picked up Dear Dead Person for a few bucks.
Fucking looooved Mad God, I think I should give it another watch. Could pair nicely with shrooms…
Hey D,
Um, If you need to fill a day on your Blog anytime I can whip up a little post about my new book that came out yesterday!!! But seriously dude, thanks for all of your support over the decades. I totally appreciate it. I know mail doesn’t make it over there really well but I’d be happy to send you the .pdf!
Love,
L
Hi Dennis, my message from Saturday morning missed the boat narrowly, so here’s the latest quick update on Laura: she’s pretty knackered but steadily recovering.
And she (still) would like three words from you. ANY words.
Love * VK & L