Masque of the Red Death (2025) Directed by Vincent-louis Apruzzese

This project was suggested to me at a showing of one of my earlier animations. I did not think I could pull it off, the story has over 1000 people and a setting involving 7 rooms of various colours among other technically challenging aspects. After reading the story a few times more I decided it could be pulled back with less people and less room and still keep the tone and message of the story intact. 

Even so, it would mean animating more characters in several shots than I ever had before and involve some animal simulations I wasn’t sure how to pull off. Poe’s wordiness and descriptions were also pulled back partly to reflect the simpler setting but mostly to reflect how bad a narrator I am. I did enhance my voice a little to make it sound better. 

I used Make Human and Human Gen to create the characters. This made it feasible to make so many and also Human Gen can add clothes you make or buy in an easy way which I really needed for this project. One thing that Blender has in abundance is reasonably priced fantastic addons so my one man show looks better, I hope, than it would have totally on my own. 

It was rendered in EEVEE and compositing and colour work was done in Apple Motion while editing was done in Final Cut Pro. 

I did have issues with Human Gen here and there. A few characters suddenly had finger rigging  issues and I wish that plugin had more secondary facial controls like Make Human. It has much better skin and hair so it’s a question of which I could get the most out of. The robed figure was simply rigged withAuto Rig pro. Something I plan to use more in future. 

Not what is next except to get familiar with compositing in Blender. I would like to use depth maps and maybe motion  maps in Apple Motion like I used to and separate elements for better colour corrections. I will try and redo some older animations I think will be greatly improved over the Cinema 4D versions and decide on a new project as I go go through all of that. 

Le Vourdalak (2023) directed by Adrien Beau

 

It's hard to talk about this film without spoilers, it's has some interesting elements better experienced as a surprise. Spoiler free, this is a film about a nobleman finding shelter after being robbed on the road and getting caught up in a family's tragic story of death and horror. It is based on Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy's 1839 novella The Family of the Vourdalak. I had already read it before seeing this so I had an idea what was going to happen. It's mostly well acted, nicely filmed, slow and hypnotic with some scares and a villain that works when it really shouldn't. 

Spoilers

A vourdalak is basically a vampire and this movie is based on one of the oldest printed vampire stories. it follows much of the lore of the time it was written so its has some nice touches, like vampires eating their shrouds that add a creepier than normal feel to it. The grandfather leaves to fight in the war but warns the family that if he isn't back in 6 days, he has died and if he is seen again to reject him as he will have become a vourdalak. He returns just after the deadline and his son takes his emaciated body into the house despite the protestations of the family. 

The grandfather is a vampire like you haven't really seen in film. Sure he is a living corpse but he is also played by a life sized puppet. This should be comical but it isn't.. at all. It is done well but doesn't really hide that it's a puppet. It has charisma and does manage to scare the crap out of you a couple times. it does what traditional vampires did and begins to transform the rest of the family into undead creatures. 

The nobleman is seen as a dandy, at first. Over time he grows and we see more than a prissy rich guy but someone willing to combat the undead for the family that took him in. He is in love with the daughter but that takes a back seat when the grandfather goes after the young grandson. The film ends with a couple of surprises and strays from the original story but overall it is a good adaption. 

The father is played really well and the rest of the cast does too. The weakest link is the daughter/love interest. She is a too odd to get a sympathetic handle on. Vassili Schneider as the brother is another departure from the novella. He is sexually ambiguous in some ways, dressing like a woman at times but also strong when he needs to be. His family is accepting of him as he is and this normally admirable trait is definitely misplaced when the father accepts the grandfather back into the family. Being a vampire is a little beyond acceptance, in my opinion of course. 

The pace is slow but that helps the viewer accept what is happening and while there is some gore it's restrained. The filming is mostly subtle and natural. There is a night/day issue that crops up quite a bit and it's hard to get an idea if hours or days have passed. it's not a deal breaker as the story and actors really draw you in. 

Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) directed by André Øvredal

 

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a film that "fills in" what happened on the ill fated boat that took Dracula and his boxes of earth from his homeland to England. The basics of the story are taken from the captain's logs found the Bram Stoker's original novel and then it adds characters to flesh out the details. In the book we simply know the ship arrives with everyone dead, filled with boxes of earth and rats. The logs tell of something that killed the crew members while at sea. The horror in that part of the book comes from not knowing what happened in any detail. As readers we know it's Dracula feeding on the crew until he reaches his destination and it reinforces him as a source of evil. 

In my opinion that is all there needs to be, this idea of backfilling fictional stories (looking a you Star Wars) so there are no gaps from one event to another is something that really bugs me. Those gaps are often what makes the story work. The viewer fills in nebulous details with ideas of their own and, in the case of a horror movie, that is where the fear and dread comes from. Our own fears can make the film seem much more personally scary. 

The new characters are not bad ones, the lead as the black doctor is well acted and interesting and the woman found in one of the crates - put there as a way to keep Dracula fed on his trip so no one will know he is there - is also a good movie idea. Just not one where we already know what is going to happen. There is also the issue of a few pages in a book or a few minutes in a film allow you to not notice some things that a 2 hour film gives you plenty of time to mull over. In this case while watching we kept asking if they know the "thing" is attacking at night and hiding on the ship, those mysterious boxes would be a good place to do a day search and when they realize that they are where the creature is hiding during the day why not throw them all overboard and save yourselves? Why does it take 90% of the film before they start making sure no one is ever alone at night? 

Dracula is also an issue in how he is portrayed. They are going for a Nosferatu type of vampire, fair enough, but that does not work for the rest of the story after this film ends as we all know already. He is naked and sometimes has wings, sometimes he doesn't. They seem to appear as needed in the plot. 

The ending is truly a mess. I won't totally spoil it but there is a survivor who decided to dedicate their life to destroying Dracula, leading to the typical opening for a sequel. Thing is I would guess most readers have read the book especially anyone who would watch this and by the time you are 5 you have some idea who Dracula is and what the story is about so we KNOW this ending cannot have happened! 

I think if this was not about Dracula but some other creature it would have worked much better. 

Kiss if the Vampire (1963) directed by Don Sharp

This was originally ment to go into the Hammer Dracula series but ended up it's own film instead. It is notable for swerving away from the typical vampire formula by having a coven of them led by a charismatic leader. There are with elements in the story as well.

A young couple gets caught up in a vampire cult when the leader of the cult takes a shine to the wife and arranges to befriend them as a ruse to kidnap her. at a masked ball he has one of group wear the same mask as her husband and lure her into a locked room. The guy is a good 5 inches taller than the husband but she fell for it anyway. There is a Van Helsing like character of sorts. A drunken man whose daughter has also fallen victim to the undead cult gets the husband t help him get both their family members free by calling 100s of vampire bats to attack the coven and kill them. This makes as much sense watching it as it did you reading it. 

The film looks good and while it's plot goes all over the place it's novel enough to keep your attention and only drags now and then. probably not something you would want to go back to over and over, though. 

Nosferatu (2024) directed by Robert Eggers

 

This long awaited remake of the 1922 classic film by Murnau was finally released Christmas day this year. The plot is not different from the original but the details and execution make this film very much it's own thing. A real estate agent is sent to meet a certain Count Orlock in in the carpathian mountains to sell him a property for a large sum of money. He arrives, and Orlock is an undead creauture that decides it will take control of the agent's new wife. The agent escapes and gets back home just before Orlock to warn his wife, who because of her odd connection to the monster already knows he is coming. The rest of the film is a race to destroy the menace somehow before the entire village dies from him or the plague he has brought with him. 

Spoilers: 

I was not sure this would work. I saw The North man and it was OK, but basically had the same plot as Conan the Barbarian. It was well filmed with great performances but had its faults. Luckily, this movie is not a copy of the original and keeps away from many of the expressionistic trapping of that one (though not all of them which is good) and relies much more on true gothic horror and the folklore of the Carpathian region involving vampires to create something new and terrifying for a modern audience. Orlock is really nothing like Max Schreck in the silent version physically. Schreck has a slim monstrous beauty in a way. Bill Skarsgård is a walking corpse with a voice that give you nightmares and is unrecognizable in any way from his real life appearance and voice. The original was considered one of the most scary films at the time due in most part to the look of Nosferatu and this new version gives us a new image to lose sleep over. 

Visually I also had some trepidation. Eggers is a master of camerawork and transitions and I am always afraid he will slip into something that looks great and takes me out of the film. He doesn't do that, in fact i would say as fantastic as the cinematography is, it stays in service of the story from start to end - pulling the viewer through the events until the conclusion. Too many films look like video game segments with sweeping impossible camera moves that are far too smooth and really distracting. See The Lord of the Rings Trilogy for example and almost any new horror movie. This film lives in its darkness and takes you into it without dragging you along, you go willingly and it's seamless. 

The sound design in the film is great. I didn't notice the soundtrack much to be honest but there are all sorts of crazy, disturbing noises woven into the shots that add to the fear and sense of unrest.

The folklore has to be addressed since Eggers is famous for his research and Nosferatu has some nice nods to the actual legends rarely seen. A horse is used to find the grave of a vampire and I've only seen that in the disappointing Dracula with Frank Langella. They use iron stakes, nice touch! The vampires are walking rotted corpses not sexy teenagers. Nosferatu is pure evil, without morals or a dumb backstory to make you "understand him better". 

The cast is all stellar. Skarsgård  is the stand out, he can't help but be and Lily-rose Depp really gets her role and her character as well as manages to freak you out with her fits of hysteria as they were called. I was hoping Willem Defoe would be Nosferatu before production started as he was so good in the role in "Shadow of the Vampire" but he was better as the eccentric vampire hunter, a role that recently I have come to really detest how it is interpreted. Francis Ford Coppola had Anthony Hopkins as a mean, perverted Van Helsing and Laurence Olivier's turn at the part was cold and underwhelming. This was a good balance of dedicated and crazy. 

As a life long fan of the Murnau film, I can say I was impressed by this version and I also love the Herzog version which is, again, a totally different take on the same story. Believe it not, a lighter version. Eggers brought the silent film into today while keeping it's look and feel firmly rooted in the past and gothic horror traditions. it could have easily gone over the top or into cliché after cliché but made it's own way instead. This is a bleak, tense often violent film so it is not for everyone and not for anyone who wants anything that resembles most vampire tales. If you want the real deal don't miss it. 

Dracula (1979) Directed by John Badham

 

This could easily have been called "Frank Langella's Dracula" since his presence is the driving force throughout. After rising to fame on stage in the role that was electrifying on Broadway and on tour for years (yet somehow never revived since) a new film version HAD to feature Langella. 

The film is not a film version of the play which had amazing hand drawn sets by the infamous gothic artist Edward Gorey and instead became much more like a Hammer studios reboot, adding a good amount of gore and some over the top set pieces but none of the humour we had seen on Broadway. Dracula is graceful and articulate, no Transylvanian accents here and a high budget allowed for interesting, if not always effective, special effects and costumes. 

Things to love about movie are the John Williams score (though his self "referencing" from other of his score is very noticeable) and the locations are beautiful dripping in gothic horror elements and the lovely matte painting work involving Dracula's Carfax Abbey. I guess the interiors of Carfax Abbey are also striking, but also they seem to be trying to replicate Gorey's illustrations in the real world which doesn't really work. There are bats, including a GIANT bat head at the rear of the main hall. Who built this place? It's way over the top where most of the other locations and props are less prone to self parody. 

Things to love less are the lack of connection or sympathy for any of the characters. They and the scenes they are in vary in tone and never congeal into more than a series of events. The characters of Lucy and Mina names are switched, Renfield has no role in the story. The movie starts with Mina somehow leaving her room unnoticed in a violent storm to get to a boat she saw crashing into the shore from her window where she sees a wold jump off the boat and go into a cave where she find not the wolf but Dracula? It's hime but we only see his hand take hold of her hand then...  it's never mentioned she was there or how Dracula got from the cave to his new house and Mina doesn't seem to know him at all when he visits later on. The end is equally nonsensical. After a complex series of events to save Lucy that isn't terrible but goes on a little long, the count is killed after being hoisted up on a hook to the sunlight on the boat he is trying to escape on and is burnt by the sun. We only see the start of this process and the shot makes it seem that he transformed in to a kite and flies away over the ocean? Lucy seems free of him but she sees the kite-count and gives an enigmatic smile. What? 

While the film doesn't really work, Langella 100% does his best despite the efforts of maybe Badham to rob the vampire of all mystery and repeating shots over and over. We see Dracula's feet only leaving a carriage etc, a shot which leads to seeing him completely at least three times. There are multiple shots though a web with a spider on it as a character walks beneath. We get it, they are caught in Dracula's web... move on. It's frustrating to see the real potential of a great film wasted but it's worth taking a look for the good elements if you can handle the bad ones. 

Festival Win! The hound at the Dunwich Horror Festival!

 

My film, The Hound, won an award at the Dunwich Horror fest for September! 

New Lovecraft Animation: The Hound (le chien) 2024 directed by: Vincent-louis Apruzzese

 

(Texte français ci-dessous :)

 Story: As I usually do, the original story had to be stripped down to its most simple and basic form. Lovecraft had the characters traveling internationally for their adventures and the hound chases them intercontinentally. As a one man band making animation, having too many elements, locations and characters will make doing the animation impossible accomplish practically. I felt the 2 characters were not likeable and Mike and I tried to get that across. The narrator is a bit pompous despite his degrading mental state as events unfold.

Production: My animation style is usually very stop motion inspired, this is as well but not as much previous efforts. 

This was a challenge, more so than my other short films because my older version of C4D stopped working in my OS and I HAD to learn Blender or not make any more animations. I have been trying to learn it for a decade without any real success. Recently the software has been advancing in leaps and bounds, not just technically but also changing it’s interface to a much more artist friendly one that is closer to industry standards. My work has dropped to almost nothing so while that is certainly panic inducing and financially disastrous, I was able to put a full time effort into learning and since Blender is free it didn’t add to my money woes. 

After 3 months I was ready to try and start production and gathered my research, worked on the script and started to make the sets and characters. I made a couple of plugin purchases ( OK more than a couple) to help me get the look I wanted which included a human character generator that works within Blender and also does the rigging automatically which saved me months of time. It is limited in that clothing options are all modern and no third party additions so far so I have to modify to give a pseudo 30s look to the costumes. I spent a HUGE amount of effort reformatting 100s of models from Cinema 4D to Bender friendly files but it was worth the effort. I was also able to easily ad fog, a gothic horror must that did not take hours to render each frame and I was very happy with the result. 

I restricted myself with some technical choices to avoid getting overwhelmed on my first project so I didn’t learn how to export separate passes of elements that would normally let me do post motion blur and give me  more control over the final images. I also rendered in the faster real time engine EVEE that Blender has developed and it was more than good enough for this. The full force render engine is really great but I would be rendering until next year if I used it, partly because I have to learn how to optimize it for my needs. 

Conclusion: I love Blender! Now I finally have a beginner’s handle on it I think I go upwards from here. It is up to you if this is a step up or down from my previous work but it seems a step up to me! 

Voici une version avec des sous-titres français :

Histoire: Comme je le fais d'habitude, l'histoire originale a dû être dépouillée dans sa forme la plus simple et la plus basique. Lovecraft a fait voyager les personnages à l'étranger pour leurs aventures et le chien les poursuit de manière intercontinentale. En tant que groupe d'un seul homme faisant de l'animation, avoir trop d'éléments, de lieux et de personnages rendra l'animation impossible à accomplir pratiquement. J'ai senti que les 2 personnages n'étaient pas sympathiques et Mike et moi avons essayé de le faire passer. Le narrateur est un peu pompeux malgré son état mental dégradant au fur et à mesure que les événements se déroulent. 

Production : Mon style d'animation est généralement très inspiré du stop motion, c'est aussi bien, mais pas autant d'efforts précédents. C'était un défi, plus que mes autres courts métrages parce que mon ancienne version de C4D a cessé de fonctionner dans mon système d'exploitation et que je devais apprendre Blender ou ne plus faire d'animations. J'essaie de l'apprendre depuis une décennie sans aucun succès réel. Récemment, le logiciel a progressé à pas de géant, non seulement techniquement, mais aussi en changeant son interface pour une interface beaucoup plus conviviale pour les artistes et qui est plus proche des normes de l'industrie. Mon travail est tombé à presque rien, donc bien que cela soit certainement induisant la panique et financièrement désastreux, j'ai pu mettre un effort à temps plein dans l'apprentissage et comme Blender est gratuit, cela n'a pas ajouté à mes problèmes d'argent. Après 3 mois, j'étais prêt à essayer de commencer la production et j'ai rassemblé mes recherches, j'ai travaillé sur le scénario et j'ai commencé à faire les décors et les personnages. J'ai fait quelques achats de plugins (OK plus que quelques-uns) pour m'aider à obtenir le look que je voulais, qui comprenait un générateur de caractères humains qui fonctionne dans Blender et qui fait également le gréement automatiquement, ce qui m'a fait gagner des mois de temps. C'est limité en ce sens que les options de vêtements sont toutes modernes et qu'il n'y a pas d'ajouts de tiers jusqu'à présent, je dois donc les modifier pour donner un look pseudo des années 30 aux costumes. J'ai dépensé énormément d'efforts pour reformater des centaines de modèles de Cinema 4D à des fichiers conviviaux de Bender, mais cela en valait la peine. J'ai également pu facilement ajouter du brouillard, une horreur gothique qui n'a pas pris des heures pour rendre chaque image et j'ai été très satisfait du résultat. Je me suis limité à certains choix techniques pour éviter d'être submergé sur mon premier projet, donc je n'ai pas appris à exporter des passes séparées d'éléments qui me permettraient normalement de faire du flou post motion et me donneraient plus de contrôle sur les images finales. J'ai également rendu dans le moteur en temps réel plus rapide EVEE que Blender a développé et c'était plus que suffisant pour cela. Le moteur de rendu pleine force est vraiment génial, mais je le rendrais jusqu'à l'année prochaine si je l'utilisais, en partie parce que je dois apprendre à l'optimiser pour mes besoins.  

Conclusion : J'adore Blender ! Maintenant que j'ai enfin une poignée de débutant, je pense que je monte à partir d'ici. C'est à vous de décider s'il s'agit d'un pas en hausse ou en bas par rapport à mon travail précédent, mais cela me semble être un pas en avant !

Dragonwyck (1946) Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

 

I would swear I wrote about this film a few months ago, but apparently I meant to and never did. I really liked it so I don't know why I would have forgotten but that is now rectified. 

Miranda, a farm girl who dreams of romance and luxury finds herself invited to visit her rich distant cousin to be a companion to his little girl and she jumps t the chance. Once there she discovered his wife and daughter have very little to do with him. Vincent Price is the rich cousin and if you are expecting this to be a gothic horror treat, it just isn't. Sure is has one gothic horror element, a harpsichord playing when tragedy is about to strike and only the cousin's direct bloodline can hear it but that goes pretty much nowhere. 

Where the film does go is into a murder mystery and family drama as Price's wife gets a cold but suddenly dies of it. The doctor he has come over, which price assumes is dumb turns out not to be. In no time The cousins are getting married after he confesses that his unhappy marriage was caused by the former wife not bearing him a son and she is pregnant shortly after the nuptials are over. Sadly, the infant dies shortly after being baptized of a heart condition.

Price becomes a lot less likeable after that, becoming a drug addict, abusive and it is revealed that, even worse, he is an atheist! Things degrade and Miranda becomes suspicious of the previous wife's death and enlists the doctor's aid to find out. They also seem to be falling for each other. 

This is not a best film of all time sort of thing but it is pretty great, mostly because Vincent price is so amazing in the role. Gene Tierny deserves a better role and the doctor as well but who can outshine Price? 

New Animation: Pulled Towards the Sea. (2023) directed by Vincent-louis Apruzzese

I wrote and illustrated a short story before deciding to make this animation and got some feedback on that which helped this be a much better story in the end. The last 2 years have been a horror of dealing with dementia in several close family members and how this terrible disease is very much a monster that takes those we love away in one of the most heart breaking and sorrowful ways. 

Originally this seemed like a good project to do in Blender and start my transition away from Cinema 4D before my old version of that software stops working but I have not been able to  get to a point where I can  understand Blender well enough to do that and getting this done seemed more important than learning something new(ish). 

I decided early on that black and white would be best and I don't regret it. I am an avid photographer who especially loves black and white images and tried to give this a sort of silent film/vintage photography look. I worked for months on the cliff set and small town to get the look I wanted and tried not to overdo it on the details that would never be seen or used. The shot of the walk from the town to the cliffs was the most daunting and took 46 hours to render. I wanted the pace to be slow but I think it doesn't drag on and it has kept the attention the few people who have seen it so far. 

Editing in Final Cut Pro and composting was done with Apple's long neglected but sometimes still updated Motion software which I like working in and doesn't cost me money every month like After Effects would. 

Music and sound effects are by me and I am not expert in either but I hope they work well enough. I am planning to try and get this in some festivals. The "Another Hole in the Head"  in San Francisco has been very good to me over the years and I hope other festivals will pick it up as long as I can find the money to enter a few! 

Personal note:

This is the first gothic animation I have made based on a short story I wrote myself. It is the first animation I have done in over 2 years and is the direct result of why I hadn't produced anything else in all that time. 

As I often state with my projects, Mike Luce was kind enough with all the other things he is doing to make the time to do the voice work and give me feedback. Core4d.com where I have been an active member for many, many years also deserves credit for the encouragement of the gang in the forums there. 

My Copps Hill Burying ground photo book on Amazon!

 Just a Halloween reminder that my 44 page photography book about Boston's 2nd older cemetery is for sale on Amazon.   Click the link to buy a copy! 

Synopsis:

Growing up in historic Boston, Massachusetts in the 1960s, I had the good fortune to have access to some of the oldest and most renowned graveyards in the United States. I took full advantage of them. For me, they are restful places filled with history, untold stories and wonderful works of art. It is easy to forget how special they are.I was always in awe of Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, having first visited there at as young boy with an unmarried aunt. One of my favorite authors, H.P. Lovecraft, mentioned the cemetery in one of his best known short stories, Pickman’s Model. One of the stones even has what looks like the inspiration for Lovecraft’s ghastly creation, the Cthulhu. Of all the old burial places in the city, this is the one that most strikes a chord with me.Even though I might prefer a more out of the way and hidden boneyard for my remains, I can’t say the idea of digging a hole and hiding myself under Copp’s Hill for eternity doesn’t hold a certain appeal.

Whistle and I will Come (2022) directed by Vincent-louis Apruzzese

 

Loosely based on the 1904 story "Oh Whistle and I'll Come for You My Lad" by M.R James. This film has no spoken dialogue and French translations of some written text. A woman living alone is joined by a surprise addition to her  isolated beach location where a hidden horror is revealed.

This was a much delayed project for many reasons. The pandemic made it difficult to create oddly because I didn't have enough isolation and family issues became a higher priority. It was also started, sets designed and a computer glitch made all the set files corrupted and they had to be redone. This made them much better in the end, I think. There is no spoken dialogue and the 2 instances to written text have French translations underneath for my local viewers. 

I use some traditional Aztec instrument sounds for some of the effects and composed the music myself, if you can call that composing... I hope it works. I made the character with an app called "Make Human" which has is limitations and needed modifications but saved time and aggravation getting this thing finally off the ground. All of the visual compositing was done in Apple Motion, my choice for animation these days. I had a plugin that allowed me to do change the focus in post, but it was updated and that feature was deleted! I was able to get my money back but the old version wouldn't work with the current Mac OS so I had to improvise and while not perfect, I found a way to do essentially the same thing. I did make the lighting with After Effects. I could have done it in Motion but AE has a preset that makes it super easy and I felt super lazy about it. 

Librement basé sur l'histoire de 1904 "Oh Whistle and I'll Come for You My Lad" de M.R James. Ce film n'a pas de dialogue parlé et des traductions françaises de certains textes écrits. Une femme vivant seule est rejointe par un ajout surprise à sa plage isolée où une horreur cachée est révélée.

Ce fut un projet très retardé pour de nombreuses raisons. La pandémie a rendu difficile la création bizarrement, car je n'avais pas assez d'isolement et les problèmes familiaux sont devenus une priorité plus élevée. Il a également été lancé, les décors ont été conçus et un problème informatique a corrompu tous les fichiers du décor et ils ont dû être refaits. Cela les a rendus beaucoup mieux à la fin, je pense. Il n'y a pas de dialogue parlé et les deux instances du texte écrit ont des traductions françaises en dessous pour mes téléspectateurs locaux.

J'utilise des sons d'instruments aztèques traditionnels pour certains des effets et j'ai composé la musique moi-même, si on peut appeler ça composer... J'espère que ça marche. J'ai créé le personnage avec une application appelée "Make Human" qui a des limites et des modifications nécessaires, mais qui a permis d'économiser du temps et de l'aggravation pour que cette chose décolle enfin. Toute la composition visuelle a été réalisée dans Apple Motion, mon choix pour l'animation ces jours-ci. J'avais un plugin qui me permettait de changer le focus dans le post, mais il a été mis à jour et cette fonctionnalité a été supprimée ! J'ai pu récupérer mon argent, mais l'ancienne version ne fonctionnait pas avec le Mac OS actuel, j'ai donc dû improviser et, même si ce n'était pas parfait, j'ai trouvé un moyen de faire essentiellement la même chose. J'ai fait l'éclairage avec After Effects. J'aurais pu le faire dans Motion mais AE a un préréglage qui le rend super facile et je me sentais super paresseux à ce sujet.

Animated short film: A Vine on a House, based on the short story by Ambrose Bierce

 

My latest gothic horror animation is based on a very short story by Ambrose Bierce, read it here if you like, and is itself fairly short. Like my previous Bierce animation, this one also strays quite a bit from the text as I try to make it relevant and more visual. For all the character, save one (the man on the porch) I used a free character generation application called "Make Human" which lets you create realistic humans with slider controls, including dressing, rigging and weighting. This means you can, hypothetically start using them in minutes and creating them takes only a few minutes as well. It is a huge time saver, especially for subjects that are not required to be created in a specific style or have to do anything unusual or complicated. I used this as a starting point and repainted the clothing myself and added controls to the rigging to make moving then less of a bone by bone affair and it worked for the most part. 

The setting itself took few months to put together. It is one location but one that ages and rots over a long time period. I wanted the fade from past to present to be noticeable but for the house to retain enough features that no one would thing the location had changed. 

I found the Make Human models were not suited for some of my rigging techniques. At least I could not figure out how to use them which was  ashamed because there are some plugins I rely on for every project that I could not use. I did find some work arounds but making them walk was really a challenge so I had to limit that as much as possible. 

This IS a horror short so there is some blood and violence but nothing like we see on TV show everyday. I do hope there is a little shock or 2 for people watching, however.

Cask of Amontillado Selected for a festival you all can watch online!

 So the SF indie fest/Another Hole in the Head has selected my animation "Cask of Amontillado" for their online Mr. Holehead's Warped Dimension Film Fest! 

The festival is the 24th-29th of September 2020 and films will be streamed to a registered Zoom audience. I may also be there in a window for a post screening Q&A live in ZOOM. The link about will have all the pertinent information if I miss posting anything here.

Tickets are now available! Click to see the link and buy tickets. My movie is being shown  on Saturday, September 26 9 a.m. PDT. It costs 10$ for a day pass to the festival so you cna see other things as well! Which is noon eastern Standard time - I think. 

My trailer for the festival:

Cask of Amontillado trailer from Vincent-louis Apruzzese on Vimeo.

The Raven 2019 directed by Vincent-louis Apruzzese

Based on the poem by Edgar Allen Poe, this was my longest single animation to date at 9 minutes. Michael Z. Keamy did the narration and it was a solid 5 months of full time work to get it done. 

This time out with the addition of simple sub-titling tools added to Final Cut X, I was able to add French and English captioning so more people can watch and understand it. I tried for a sombre but realistic tone to present to poem. I have seen a few animations that go wild with abstract shots and ideas but I wanted this to keep grounded. It was a challenge to make something that is basically some depressed dude yelling at a bird in one room for nine minutes until he passes out! I started with longer, lingering shots and then made them shorter and shorter as it progressed to give it a faster pace while keeping the ideas of grief and depression to the forefront. 

The tell tale heart - short animation 2018 Vincent-louis Apruzzese

My new film is based on Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell Tale Heart. It took a lot out of me this time... it's a lot of work doing everything from writing to animation to the voice myself. I have a couple more Poe tales on the back burner - but they will wait for next year, I think.

Dagon 2018 directed by Vincent-louis Apruzzese

The newest in my gothic horror series and the fourth H.P. Lovecraft I have adapted for animation.

Universal’s already cursed Dark Universe

It was inevitable that the success of Marvel’s superhero universe would spawn others from other studios. When Universal made it clear they were going to jump into it with a monster-verse it seemed like a really great idea. As this plan has rolled out and revised with the failure of each film slated to be the « start » of the Dark Universe, it seems clear that modern Universal studios hasn't a clue what they are doing.

It can be argued that Universal started the whole connected film series thing and already had a universe of films starting from 1923’s Hunchback of Notre Dame up to 1960’s The Leech Woman - which is quite a long run. While not all those films were classics, to say the least, many of them were and quite a few more were good, fun films. They were doing mash-ups before the word was invented and relating sequels and combining storylines in ways no one else had thought of doing. Those ideas ran their course, the pubic opinion of them changed and the loosely related series was abandoned… until recently.

They remade Dracula with Braodway heartthrob Frank Langella successfully in the 70s but in the 2000’s they came back in force with the Mummy series starring Brendon Fraser and seemed poised for another long run with their remake of the Wolfman in 2010 - which had so much potential but in the end turned out to be something like the original Hulk movie but with werewolves. They did many of the right things - the victorian setting, the makeup by Rick Baker was astounding - and then replaced it mostly by lame CGI. The film had the look but not the soul of a classic gothic horror film worthy of their legacy.

It got much worse with Dracula Untold - which will not be spoken of. These films, first stated as the start of the new series of gothic horror classic updates were so bad they were quickly dismissed and all hope was set on the 2017 version of the Mummy, another flop in most senses. They had done this before… why are they so off-base now?

I think the decision to go CGI in the Wolfman says a lot. Apparently, marketing wanted CGI because you know, the kids like that sort of thing - even thought film did not need or call for it. Kids want to see good movies, they don’t really care how the monsters are made, just that they look cool and work in the film. The attempt to modernize the old stories for today’s audiences isn’t a bad one, though the gothic victorian nature of the source material does limit how modern it can be and still work. Already having decided to keep the stories in the past they were sort of stuck with that idea, but even that could have been handled by setting a new film, let's say the Mummy, in today’s world then re-introducing the other characters in present day later on… most of them are immortal monsters after-all! There is so much opportunity and life left in these old stories that even going back to original stories and novels and simply updating them could have been fantastic.

Another problem is the idea these creatures are « like superheroes ». Yes, they have amazing powers, sure enough - but the rules and origins of those powers are literally in another universe than those of Marvel’s line up. Plus, they need to be frightening, not heroic. They need to be creepy, not funny. The Fraser Mummy series was light hearted and worked, but keeping that formula for the rest of the classic line up is just not tenable, in my opinion. Don’t be chasing Disney’s audience, create a new one based not on wholesome family faire but scary and with their gothic sensibilities intact. They don’t have to be R-rated, super violent or sex filled, just add enough of that stuff to keep modern cinephiles on their toes. Keep the elements that made these movies work in the first place and stop thinking of them as action films with creatures that in almost no way resemble their origins. The lore of monsters is not about action and more about what we fear, a way to point out it’s often we who are the monsters and the creatures, our victims. Create NEW monsters that fit into this new horrifying world and don’t rely solely on known properties. The biggest problem with the current crop of Universal Dark Universe flicks is the complete lack of risk they take with them.

Oddly, the best updated gothic horror films are not coming from the old studio. If the trailers and advance reviews of The Shape of Water pan out. Guilermo del Toro, more than anyone else with this new film, added to others like, Crimson Peak, Pan’s Labyrinth or even Mimic, shows he knows exactly what works and how to produce the films Universal should be. His films expand the gothic horror sensibility to today, take risks and mange to touch, inform and scare the pants of us that I am afraid none of the Dark Universe will even come close to doing.

Universal has a done a great job presenting and restoring the old films, I wish they could apply some of that talent to producing new ones.

Working with Lovecraft’s racism and gothic sexism

One of the difficult things with adapting other people’s stories for films is the baggage that comes with some of them. Many times it’s just odd plot machinations or maybe older references modern people have completely forgotten. Sometimes, it's much more delicate.

H.P. Lovecraft was notoriously racist. There isn’t much of a debate about that. He wasn’t pulling an Eminem, saying he was just writing characters who happened to be racists. He was saying Italians are a filthy race living in squalor (as just one example) in stories, correspondences and personal interactions. I would argue it’s much less present in his literary work than his personal life and some of the offensive stuff in his writing might be us putting our modern sensibilities over those of a time where  racism was open and common - but I wouldn't argue it’s not in there or acceptable.

Gothic horror stories and many stories from that period in general, including Lovecraft’s, have an inherent sexism as well. The protagonists are almost always male, and often there are no women at all! When women are present they are often victims, or sickly or at the mercy of some guy she married. To be fair, that was the case for many women at the time so it’s no surprise that’s how they were represented in fiction.

So, why would I choose to make films from such problematic source material? For one thing, the stories themselves are fun, amazing, scary and have attracted me since I first learned to read. They are not about being racist or sexist, they are just trained by those elements. Since the authors are dead and the stories are for the most part in public domain, they are a rich source of ideas a poor filmmaker like me can actually make use of. As time goes by and immortal corporations have begun to own everything for forever and a day, making freely adaptable material more and more rare.

In the case of my Lovecraft films, I easily can cut the stuff I like out. In fact, it never has anything really to do with the basic story so it’s never missed. I am also not lining the pockets of some bigot with cash in order to make them. Despite his influence on the horror genre, he is still relatively unknown in the world at large and, face it my little films won’t change that. His stories are also simple enough at their root to cut down to 2-4 characters and a few settings. This is vitally important when you are a one man show making an animated film by yourself with no budget.

Sexism in gothic horror in general is little harder to get around and I haven’t been able to do what I would like to change them in a way I think would work. I have exchanged some men’s parts for women but then I can’t get a woman voice actor to record the part. The doctor in Cool Air would have been a woman if I could have found someone is one example. I added a mention of a sister in Staley Fleming’s Hallucination just to have the mention of a women, even though in that mention she is the grieving fiancé.

In conclusion, I guess I still have some way to go to combat the problems in the stories of others I am telling. like many things, some of it because of budget, resources etc is beyond my control - but I do try.