The Spine of Night, 2021.
Directed by Philip Gelatt & Morgan Galen King.
Featuring the voice talents of Richard E. Grant, Lucy Lawless, Patton Oswalt, Larry Fessenden, and Betty Gabriel.
SYNOPSIS:
Animated fantasy horror about heroes, wizards, fluorescent flowers and ancient evil.
The Spine of Night is a wonderfully crafted throwback to the animation style of those strange sci-fi/fantasy epics of the 1980s, smashing together the raucous rock n’ roll energy of Gerald Potterton’s Heavy Metal with the loinclothed sex and violence of Conan the Barbarian, although this being animated the violence is a lot more explicit and gorier than you could probably get away with in a live-action movie.
The main story thread tells a tale of ancient evil forces trying to conquer a planet using magic contained in small blue flowers that harness the power of the universe. However, instead of a linear story the tale is told from various points in time by different generations of warriors, all telling their stories about taking on the sinister forces, culminating in a legend than spans the ages, bringing together themes of an environmental nature, of man interfering with nature, and the ultimate destruction of mankind. Maybe that sounds a little heavy going but there is a style in the storytelling that isn’t quite anthology but the separation between the various characters and the way their stories come together adds an extra layer that keeps things moving.
And keeping moving is the best thing for The Spine of Night as the rotoscope animation style is absolutely gorgeous, the characters moving with a fluidity that belies their less detailed appearance, and when combined with the painted backgrounds it creates an environment that very few – if any – live action movies have captured successfully. Against the beauty of the scenery there is the gore, where people and monsters get slashed and decapitated in scene after scene of ultra-violent swordplay, and characters such as Tzod, a swamp witch who walks around naked, which is something you don’t get in your average Saturday morning cartoon.
But while The Spine of Night is stunning to look at and will evoke memories of animated fantasy adventures from years gone by, its narrative is messy, despite the anthology-esque nature of the way it is told. As with most sword-and-sorcery stories, it basically comes down to good versus evil, so as long as you know who is fighting for which side then you can pretty much follow what is going on.
However, in this movie not everything is black-and-white – in fact, most of it is blue – and when the fighting calms down and the various characters continue their monologues, it does get very muddled as to why certain characters are doing what they are doing and you just have to go with it. Luckily, these scenes don’t last for long and it is back to the action pretty quickly, but it pays to keep a keen ear on what is being said as it is very easy to lose track of what is going on.
Featuring the voice talents of Richard E. Grant, Lucy Lawless, Larry Fessenden and Patton Oswalt, The Spine of Night probably won’t have a wide appeal outside of anime fans or those with a penchant for Dungeons and Dragons-style storytelling, but it is certainly worth a watch if you fancy something different, if only just to marvel at the wonderfully rendered artwork, laugh at the extreme violence and soak in the whole stoner vibe of it all. Just don’t try to follow the story too closely.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
