Wednesday, March 19All That Matters

The Spine of Night – Official Red Band Trailer – A Shudder Exclusive

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  • > This epic fantasy tale, about the history of a land that never was, begins when an ambitious young man steals forbidden knowledge from a sacred plant. He falls to its darker temptations and in so doing, unleashes ages of suffering onto mankind. As his power grows over the years, it falls to people of different ilk and culture to attempt to stop him. Among those who stand against him are a daring tomb-robber, star-crossed lovers, a maniacal necromancer, winged assassins, and an undying guardian. Featuring the voices of Richard E. Grant, Lucy Lawless, Patton Oswalt, Betty Gabriel and Joe Manganiello.

    > Premieres March 24 on Shudder

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  • I watched this on DVD. It’s better than I thought it would be, but is disjointed with an odd message.

    A naked swamp witch trudges up a snowy mountain to meet an old guardian of a mystical flower. She shows him the same flower, and starts to tell the tale of how she was driven out of her swamp and the conqueror behind it.

    It’s pretty decent a homage to midnight animation like Bakshi’s Fire and Ice. The animation style is ugly, with some of the least attractive naked people ever, but there’s a lot of gore and it does achieve sort of a gritty Heavy Metal look as animated in the 80s by a lower budget studio.

    The story eventually turns from the witch to the conqueror and the people who encounter or resist him. It’s by like the framing device with Heavy Metal, but more unified and in the same world over time. You come across different people with the swamp witch telling the story of the conqueror to the guardian as a link. It works very well actually, and the penultimate story is a standout, showing the tyrant’s ambitions thwarted. I think despite the roughness of the animation and acting it actually did well at capturing that midnight adult fantasy feel, and I’m often very negative on film.

    The problems I think were some things in the story seemed to just happen; the witch being in possession of the bloom in the first place I don’t recall was explained, and many things just happen for rule of cool. The stories also are a little too self contained, with characters gone once their chapter is over, and some you think would have parts to play in the end don’t. The actual end is kind of meh too, the sequence before it was so much better.

    The message is also odd. There’s a dark cosmic nihilism, but at one point it’s played as positive, which comes across as silly. You also get the sense the writer believes in everything is meaningless but also is a bit of a moralist too. Hard to explain without spoilers.

    But I think for all it’s flaws, it is one of the few modern homages that get the material it is homaging. It feels like you could have watched it in the 70s or 80s, and dark fantasy animation like that is not common at all. I enjoyed it a lot and recommend it.

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  • I thought it was beautiful, but it’s definitely not for everyone. There are shorts on YouTube that take place before the events of the movie, if anyone would like some context (search for Morgan King, that will take you to Gorgonauts YouTube channel). I actually won the steelbook from Fangoria, haven’t gotten it yet though

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