I’ve been in the process of moving locations, so I haven’t been able to watch a feature film for the blog this week. However, I didn’t want to leave you folks with no entry again, so I decided to cover a short film instead. This is an early work by director Henry Selick, a stop-motion filmmaker who would go on to direct The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and Coraline. While those do contain his wild style to varying degrees, this short is, I feel, the true encapsulation of what he was all about, at least at this point in his career.
The short follows Slow Bob, a reclusive guy who lives in the attic of his parents’ house with a group of lizards and a spider. He’s consistently tormented by his conjoined twin sisters, who paint him yellow with blue crosses. While he might be a loser in our dimension, he becomes a hero in the lower dimensions, which he can transport himself to with the help of the lizards. In this short, he goes to help the photograph kingdom whose people are being attacked by giant scissors. That’s pretty much all I can say without giving too much away, though really I’m not giving away much, since it’s a short and all. Anyway, let’s talk about the short as a whole.
Visually and animation-wise, this short is awesome. We have several different elements at play here: live-action for Bob in the real world, puppetry for his lizards, figurine stop-motion for his sisters, object animation for the scissors, and cut-out for the photograph people (as well as Bob himself, which I’ll explain in a bit). All of these are very well done and give off that late 80s/early 90s late night quirkiness. The sisters’ faces look very Picasso/cubist, which both serves to add to the oddball vibe and to emphasize their snotty nature (it always looks like they’re pouting or smirking deviously). The blue and green lighting against the dark shadows of the house also adds to the off-kilter and slightly eerie vibe of the film, revealing the hidden darkness of what should be a nice suburban home. The parents are only ever seen through shadow in the living room, sleeping in rocking chairs, unaware of the sisters who are sneaking around out of bed to torment their brother. Heck, they wake up exactly when the clock strikes two in the morning, so they must do this pretty frequently. With bullying and most likely neglect going on in his life, it’s no wonder Bob would want to escape to the lower dimensions. There, he’s not just away from it all, he’s actually a beloved hero. Clearly, he’s also been doing this for a while, since the spider in his room weaves “EMERGENCY!” on its web while the lizards encourage him to hurry while a crisis is going on. It’s never made clear if Bob is actually going to these other worlds or if these are just imaginary, but I get the feeling that’s probably the idea. Granted, it’s hard to say if that actually was the case, since this film wasn’t meant to be a one-off. It was actually made as a pilot for a potential TV series, or at least a mini-series. It was being made for MTV at the time, which would have been the perfect place for it, if you’re familiar with Liquid Television and all the weird late-night animation stuff they were airing at that time. Sadly, it never went into production, as Henry Selick got the offer from Tim Burton to direct The Nightmare Before Christmas, so Selick chose to do that instead. While I think Nightmare is a fine enough movie, I really would’ve liked to see what this show would’ve been like. It really seems to show what Selick was truly capable of artistically, and it might have helped him make a name for himself before helping his buddy Burton out. That way, he might have avoided getting stuck in Burton’s shadow for so many years. Well, shoulda coulda woulda and all that, what we have is still a really cool film and one that I’d definitely recommend you go check out. It’s one of only a few projects that I wish I could’ve made myself, honestly. Oh, before I wrap up, the music for this film was done by The Residents. If you know anything about the arty and oddball nature of that group, then you know they’re a perfect fit for this kind of film.
So, yeah, a shorter entry this week, but hopefully one that you can still take into consideration for viewing. I’ve always loved and respected mixed media projects, especially ones with a twisted edge, and this is one such project that really shows that off effectively. It kind of makes me sad that Selick’s later film Monkeybone turned out so poorly, since, considering what I know about the original idea and how they probably would have done it, it could’ve been the feature length Slow Bob movie we never got. Anyway, next week we’re heading back into Von Trier territory (most likely, anyway), so be prepared for heavy emotions. Until then, check out Slow Bob and see what twisted and vibrant animation talent can do.