A little nightmare fuel for the run-up to Halloween. Robert Morgan is a British animator whose filmography to date has comprised a handful of short films plus a single feature, Stopmotion, which is on my future viewing list. All of his work is firmly situated in the horror sphere, a commendable stance when so many animators must be tempted by the financial rewards of advertising work and the pressure to make family-friendly comedies about cute characters with big eyes.
The Separation.
Two of the films linked here are very short so I won’t burden them with description. The Cat with Hands (2001) is one I’m sure I’d seen before, possibly on Channel 4 since the channel is credited at the end. Or maybe I dreamed something similar… With a running time of just over nine minutes The Separation (2003) is the longest and most ambitious of the three, a story of conjoined twins which is like David Cronenberg filming something of his own in the style of Dave Borthwick’s The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb. Morgan’s oeuvre owes much to Borthwick’s animated grotesquerie. They Have Changed Their Faces is more of an experimental piece but very effective all the same; creepy in every sense of the word. If you like these there’s more to be seen at Morgan’s YouTube channel.
They Have Changed Their Faces.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb
• The Magic Art of Jan Švankmajer
• Jiří Barta’s Labyrinth of Darkness
• The Web by Joan Ashworth
• Jiří Barta’s Pied Piper