#Hooptober9

💀 NUMBER FIFTEEN 💀
💀 TWO ANIMATED FILMS 💀

"The Spine Of Night" (2021)
* dir: Philip Gelatt & Morgan Galen King
* Fantasy / Horror / An Animated Anthology Epic Inspired By That Bitchin' Mural On The Side Of Your Cousin's Van
[ ★★★★ / ★★★★★ ]

"The Spine Of Night" feels like a "Heavy Metal" comic adaptation directed by Ralph Bakshi that was made in 1985 and somehow lost to history until mysteriously unearthed in modern times. Meaning: excessive nudity (male and female), excessive violence (equals parts cartoonishly broad and relentlessly grim), a narrative with a deceptive amount of imagination (despite the juvenile tendencies on display), and a staggeringly vast timescale that spans literal millenia.

In another word: dope. This movie is dope as hell.

While the method of animation may look "cheap" to certain eyes, I find it charmingly dated in a nostalgic throwback sort of way. And it's worth mentioning that it's almost exclusively the rotoscoped human/humanoid characters that give off that particular vibe, as the rest of the film looks positively gorgeous. Or, to put it another way: the sheer visual creativity on display here largely breaks past any sort of budgetary or stylistic limitation that might exist, especially as they push into the cosmically surreal.

And although it may start out feeling a bit boilerplate for a grand fantasy epic, "The Spine Of Night" eventually takes a much-appreciated turn for the remarkably ambitious (from both a story perspective and in regards to the aforementioned animation style), as the narrative pulls back and widens in scale while simultaneously deepening not only the lore and overall mythology, but the emotional depth as well. And before too long it unequivocally becomes one of those stories that you could only ever possibly bring to life in the world of animation (unless you had one of the highest budgets in film history), particularly when we get to the sequence of Richard E. Grant describing the origin of mankind as well as the birth of the entire goddamn universe in vivid, awe-inspiring detail.

It's often quite beautifully written as well, particularly in its dialogue that somehow manages to remain plainly unpretentious while simultaneously delving into some verbose, flowery prose. To wit, here's a character describing a sky filled with stars: "They feel so warm to me. Distant travelers stopped briefly to huddle around campfires on their journey across the very spine of night's great body".

Mmm. That's that good shit, baby. Double portions, please!