Ultraviolent world-building and bone-crushing dominate this animated fantasy film.
While there’s a lot of content out there these days that can be described as “adult animation,” we don’t see much in the tradition pioneered by 1980s stoner semi-classics like the sci-fi anthology “Heavy Metal” or the racy sword-and-sorcery saga “Fire and Ice.”
Admittedly, it’s not as if there’s a mainstream outcry for such fare. Nevertheless, the existence of “The Spine of Night,” an unabashedly bloody series of interconnected tales about otherworldly cultures and eras, is kind of heartening. The co-directors, Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King, who both wrote the picture as well, are pitching for a venerable dirtbag-nerd sensibility here.
The movie signals its commitment to nudity right off the bat, with its depiction of a witchy warrior, Tzod (voiced by Lucy Lawless), racing up a snowy mountainside in the altogether, save for oodles of ceremonial jewelry. Once at the top, she meets the ghostly Guardian (Richard E. Grant), who watches over the “bloom.” It holds an awesome, perhaps cosmic force.
They relate to each other stories of the bloom’s power. How it corrupted a medieval scholar turned despot. And of how the quest for knowledge frequently mutates into greed. Some dialogue is amusingly familiar to any Bond fan. “You took me from mother swamp to serve this place?” “No, I took you from mother swamp to die in this place.” Hmm.
As philosophical as the movie waxes, it’s mostly a brief history of disembowelment and bone-crushing. Alas, all the world-building filmmakers may contrive doesn’t count for much if they don’t put it across visually. And this heavily rotoscoped vision does not get where it needs to be to achieve genuine trippiness. Not for nothing, the most visually effective sequence is made up of silhouettes.
The Spine of Night
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
