Blogtober Day 10: Spooky Shorts

I love a brilliant, unsettling animated short film. Don't you? For today's Blogtober post I watched two animated shorts, the first being Alma, which according to it's wiki was in development to become a DreamWorks feature film with Guillermo del Toro as executive producer, but there's no further news.

Both of these shorts have no dialogue, and fit the spooky Halloween theme perfectly, although they are 20 years apart in production and approach horror in different ways.


Alma

Alma is a CGI animated film released in 2009 by animator Rodrigo Blaas and produced  by User T-38 

What struck me first was how awesome the architecture in this is, for its aesthetic and also for its addition to the spooky narrative in small details. It has everything frightening about dolls, the creepy pained smiles, the shifting eyes, moving on their own. If you're creeped out by dolls and puppets, you will *definitely* get the creeps from watching this!

A child, who we learn is named Alma as they write it on a wall in chalk among a number of other names from passers by. Turning around, there is a toy shop with a doll in the window that looks just like Alma! Too bad the shop is closed, or is it?
Alma ventures into the shop and reaches for the doll, getting distracted momentarily by a bicycle-riding puppet, and looking back up, notices the doll is now up high on the shelf. How did that happen? Thankfully there are pieces of furniture to climb onto, if Alma can make it to the doll without any danger..

There's one part at the end that I'm not sure is intentional or an oversight. Without giving away what happens, the doll at the end that is in focus ends up missing a glove, but the glove that is lying on the ground next to it is the wrong glove for the hand that is missing it.


The Sandman

Released in 1991, this short was created by stop-motion photography and has the wonderful aesthetic of a Tim Burton movie in a horrifying alternate reality of the Rankin Bass world.

It hits all the creepy notes by inclusion of skulls, a lone candle in the dark, creepy shadows, and twisted, creaking staircases. Basically the short is the perfect representation of how it feels to be a child afraid of the dark at night. In the darkness at the corners of the room are odd shapes that your eyes can't quite make out and seem to move and shift. You're meant to close your eyes but they keep popping open to check what's at the end of your bed and underneath, every creak and shake of the house is a noise that you're sure was made by something horrible.

A young boy is being sent to bed, a lone candle and a bright sliver of moon illuminating him in the darkness on his way up the winding stairs to bed. But getting to sleep involves a journey through dark corridors, into a bed in a drafty chamber, and eyes shut against things that may be lurking in the corners. And they are! Or are they coming up the stairs? The creak of the rickety steps give away that something is on its way.. could it be the Sandman?


I'll let you in on something from my childhood (the 90s, early 2000s)- when I was little I was afraid of the dark, and most afraid of the evil rat from Disney's Lady and the Tramp. There's a part when the rat is causing chaos and keeps slipping away, you can see its evil little red eyes glaring out from its hiding place. I was terrified that I would see its glowing red eyes looking at me from the darkness of my closet, or in the corner beside my bookshelf. 

What were you afraid of as a child? Are you still afraid of it?