Into the Wonderwoods, from Vincent Paronnaud

It is another environmental fairy tale for kids, but this time, it is like Gru and the Minions are trying to burn down Fern Gully. Obviously, the evil alien calling himself “Ultra” is a lot meaner than Gru—and he originally sounded much more French. He has been razing the forest in search of the fabled springs of immortality. Litle lost Angelo could use some of those waters too, for his beloved ailing grandmother in Vincent Paronnaud & Alexis Ducord’s Into the Wonderwoods, adapted from Paronnaud’s graphic novel (written under his Winshluss pen-name), which releases tomorrow on VOD.

Angelo is also a lot like the Home Alone kid, because his family never notices when they leave him behind at a rest stop. In their defense, they are concerned about Grandma—and his father is also busy quarreling with the GPS AI. (It should be further stipulated, his jazz-listening dad deserves credit for his better taste in music). Angelo always imagines himself a brave explorer, in heroic 2D animated interludes, so this is his chance to prove his resourcefulness. He will simply cut straight through the forest to reach grandmother’s house.

Frankly, he barely survives the ants. Nevertheless, he starts to meet various forest dwellers who are willing to stand up to Ultra’s terror and destruction. Angelo might be the catalyst the “Resistance” needs. That is why Ultra takes an unwelcome interest in him.

Arguably, Into the Wonderwoods represents a cornucopia of borrowed genre elements, even including the character of Goouh, a hulking embodiment of vegetation, who is sort of like “The Green” in Swamp Thing comics, but more anthropomorphic. (In fact, the “Goo” character design work is rather cool). Regardless, the overall fusion is sufficiently weird to keep animation fans tuned in.

Great artists steal, right? And Paronnaud has made several great films, especially Persepolis, in collaboration with Marjane Satrapi. Along with Ducord (who co-helmed Zombillenium), Paronnaud creates an offbeat fantastical world, beneath the forest’s natural surface level. Indeed, zigging in a science fiction direction instead of zagging towards fantasy represents a shrewd strategy.

Asylum: Twisted Horror and Fantasy Tales

You have to give Nicolas Onetti (one half of the Onetti Brothers) and his producing partners credit for being good delegators (somewhat unusually in genre cinema). As they did with A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio, they took another batch of short films that already had festival cred and shoehorned them into an anthology. There is no real theme encompassing their latest feature collection either, which is why the subtitle is even broader. However, you can still be assured there will be plenty of nightmarish mayhem in Asylum: Twisted Horror and Fantasy Tales, which releases today on VOD.

Brandon will be our evil clown stand-up-comic-from-Hell master of ceremonies for this evening’s entertainment, from an asylum where the inmates are apparently in charge and putting on a show. Supposedly, each tale relates somehow to his slowly revealed backstory, but do not beat yourself up if you can’t see the connections.

It is a bit ironic the “tales” kick off with Damien LeVeck’s The Cleansing Hour, since it has already been fixed-up to a full feature in its own right. Regardless, even though the concept of a phony exorcism web-series that suddenly finds itself dealing with a genuine demonic possession might not be so original anymore, LeVeck’s execution is tight and brisk, while his game cast keeps things snappy and sharp. It is followed by Kheireddine El-Helou’s slasher short, Drudge, which is certainly intense, but never offers any new twists or spins on the familiar material.

Mat Johns’ Father’s Day is a somewhat revisionist and sometimes poignant zombie story that would probably pay-off on a deeper level, if we witnessed the characters during the “before times.” Still, the implied suggestion these zombies still have a glimmer of their memories and feelings could easily support further exploration.

Without a doubt, Caye Casas & Alberto Albert Pinto’s RIP is definitely the high point of Asylum. The macabre tale of a nebbish sad sack miraculously resurrected just before his funeral recalls vintage Nacho Vigalondo, even more so for its subversive humor than the fact it is a Spanish language production. The practical effects are just a delightful bloody mess.

Ale Damiani’s dystopian anti-Trump screed M.A.M.O.N. just seems hopelessly dated now, unless you secretly believe the current Prez’s election challenges might have merit (you don’t, do you?). At least its short.

The second highpoint comes with the charmingly dark animated fable, The Death, Dad and Son, directed by Walgenwitz & Winschluss (a.k.a. Denis Walgenwitz and Persepolis co-director Vincent Paronnaud). The titular Grim Reaping personification of death happens to have a bratty son at home, who creates all kinds of supernatural havoc when he intervenes with the natural order of things. Their animation is wonderfully twisted, as is their idea of a happy, lessons-learned ending. Good stuff.

Fantasia ’20: Hunted

“The Handsome Guy” and his accomplice originally did not set out for another “Most Dangerous Game”-style people-hunting excursion. They aren’t that sporting. However, when their latest prospective victim escapes into the woods, they inevitably chase after her. It turns out the pagan spirits of nature will pick a side (and it won’t be the predators) in Vincent Paronnaud’s Hunted, which screened at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

The campfire-story prologue tells us this wooded setting is somewhat akin to that of In the Company of Wolves, but the forest has its own collective, Jungian, Gaia-goddess consciousness. That is about the only good news of the night for Eve (hmm, wonder why they chose that name? Maybe in honor of Eve Arden?). After a night drinking in a strange, vaguely Euro, English-speaking-with-an-accent town, Handsome and his accomplice stuffed her in their trunk, with the intention of doing terrible things to her. When a freak accident sets her free, she is off and running. The psychos would seem to have all the advantages, but the spirit of the forest will do what it can to level the playing field.

Even with the stylized preamble, the first two acts of Hunted still play like traditional neo-grindhouse victimization-and-revenge horror. However, things get interesting in the third act, when Paronnaud brings back the campers from the prologue. The action gets really messy and complicated, but in inventive ways.

Still, this is definitely quite far afield from Paronnaud’s classy collaborations with Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis and Chicken with Plums. Even Paronnaud’s super-cool zombie short Territory has greater cinematic scope. Yet, it should be readily stipulated, the payback pays-off in a big way.

NYFF ’15: Genre Shorts

When we use the term “genre film,” we usually do not mean genres like romance and coming-of-age movies. It definitely covers horror and science fiction, but could also encompass thrillers, gangster movies, and maybe even westerns. Basically, it means somebody is going to die, probably pretty darn painfully. By that standard, the short films collected in the 53rd New York Film Festival’s Short Program 2: Genre Stories are as genre as it gets.

The programming block starts out with its best foot forward. In Territory (trailer here), Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi’s co-director on Persepolis and Chicken with Plums, takes us to the Pyrenees, circa 1957. Pierre is a rustic shepherd who can handle just about anything with his trusty herding dog. However, even he is a bit concerned when the paratroopers start landing. Soon he gets a good look at why they are there—and its decidedly Cabin Fever-ish or zombie apocalyptic.

For a short film, Territory has massive scope. Paronnaud gets his money’s worth from the Pyrenees location and the genre business is suitably freaky. Obviously, it is far gorier than his collaborations with Satrapi, but it is worthy of their company. That is saying a lot too, because Persepolis is a straight up modern classic and you could make a strong case on behalf of Plums as well.

In comparison, Stephen Dunn’s We Wanted More is a bit of a letdown. It is definitely the smallest film of the bunch, but he does pull off a rather macabre surprise. A child begat through a spot of body horror generally primes us to go in a certain direction, especially when she has perfect powers of mimicry, but Dunn zags the other way.

There is no question Percival Argüero Mendoza’s Sânge is the most disturbing film in the genre program. It is the sort of horror film that hates horror films, showing what happens to a horror buff like Cassandra and her film snob boyfriend when she insists on attending a sketchy Romanian found footage film the ominous Petru Beklea is four-walling in a decrepit, out of the way theater. Let’s just say it looks unnervingly realistic. Seriously, this is a film that could really mess some people up.

For something completely different, Helen O’Hanlon gets downright whimsical in How to be a Villain. A distinguished evil gentleman will give us the 411 on super-villainy and how we can be a part of it. There are amusing lines, but it basically has the depth of a New Yorker cartoon. Still, Mark Stubbs’ mostly black-and-white cinematography and O’Hanlon richly detailed haunted house set design are wonderfully nostalgic for those of us raised on Universal and Hammer monster movies.

The “genre’ definition is at its stretchiest for Andrei Cretuescu’s Ramona, but it has a grindhouse sensibility that definitely still qualifies. There seems to be quite a bit of backstory to the title character that viewers might not entirely pick up. Nevertheless, she is clearly out for payback and her determination is kind of awesome. For grittiness and sleaziness, it is tough to beat.

Indeed, having such ill-tempered, exploitative short films at the New York Film Festival is a real treat. As the class of the field, Paronnaud’s Territory could fit in at any festival, but all of the films have at least some merit. Recommended for horror and revenge thriller fans, Shorts Program 2: Genre Stories screens this Sunday (9/27) and Wednesday (9/30) at the Beale Theater as part of this year’s NYFF.