So I sat down and watched The Wolf House after it’s been on my to-watch list for a year, and apart from a plain and definitive, “you should watch this if you have any interest in animation,” I have three things to say about it:
1) Given that I more or less forgot to blink for an entire hour, I think it’s safe to say this is, on a technical level, one of the coolest pieces of animation (if not the coolest) I’ve ever watched. Just, wow, the creativity and planning that has gone into this! The movie builds up its own shape language over the course of its runtime, but it still keeps using new materials and techniques all the way to the very last scene. I also find it interesting how you can’t really capture what this movie feels like in still images. It’s all about the animation.
2) It wasn’t as unnerving to me as I thought it’d be. Actually, it made me laugh a few times - there are definitely some visual jokes in there and the storytelling is kept deliberately childish and fairytale-like. That isn’t criticism, it just went for a more layered kind of horror than I thought it would. Unless some of the themes really upset you, I think it’s perfectly watchable even if you don’t like horror movies.
3) Speaking of themes, if you aren’t Chilean, don’t be like me and go in with only a vague notion that the story has something to do with Chile post-WWII. Specifically, the story has to do with what it was like to grow up in the former colony/cult Colonia Dignidad, run by emigrated nazi German Paul Schäfer. The movie is quite abstract and concerned with the feelings involved more than the history, but it definitely doesn’t hurt it to read up on it a little.
evelmiina
