SummaryThis epic fantasy tale, about the history of a land that never was, begins when an ambitious young man steals forbidden knowledge from a sacred plant. He falls to its darker temptations and in so doing, unleashes ages of suffering onto mankind. As his power grows over the years, it falls to people of different ilk and culture to attempt to stop h... Read More
Directed By:Philip Gelatt, Morgan Galen King
Written By:Philip Gelatt, Morgan Galen King
The Spine of Night
Metascore
Mixed or Average
58
User score
Generally Favorable
6.8
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Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
44% Positive
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
56% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Mar 22, 2022
80
The Spine Of Night is here to satiate the cravings of those who miss a particular brand of animated storytelling, updated with added psychedelic fervour and plenty of extra-gnarly bloodshed.
Oct 28, 2021
78
The longer you are immersed in this exchange of stories, of hope dying against darkness but proving its value just by its glimmers, the more it enthralls.
User score
Generally Favorable
36% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
64% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
Apr 1, 2022
10
So unique and weird and awesome, with an eye to genre classics and an eye to modernizing them.
Nov 2, 2021
10
This is the coolest thing I've seen in ages. It's trippy, ambitious, and weird, and the unusual story structure is a welcome change of pace.
Oct 27, 2021
67
Even if The Spine of Night struggles to align its overarching story with the anthology-like shape that it takes, it’s still rare and rewarding to watch a film that makes so few bones about what it wants to be.
Mar 24, 2022
60
It’s best not to think too hard about it and just let the striking imagery and saturated colours wash over your retinas.
Mar 31, 2022
50
As the film marches to its conclusion, one will have some appreciation for the rotoscoping animation, the score, and the voice work from some of the actors. However, the murky narrative structure and the lack of a central protagonist only works against all the gory goodwill the film possessed.
Oct 28, 2021
50
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.
Oct 26, 2021
50
The Spine of Night is a reasonably good-looking — and gory — animated sword and sorcery saga for adults, a movie set in a wholly-realized fantasy world, but lacking a story or characters that invite us to invest ourselves in their fate.
Nov 8, 2021
8
The Spine of Night is an adult animated fantasy film and is a tale about a mysterious force, its influence over the ages and the ones who opposed it. Created in rotoscope style animation harkening back to classics such as The Lord of The Rings animated feature, I was both intrigued because of experiencing something different and worried because of the style of animation it is using as I'm not a fan but as it turns out, I don't mind it and got used to it fairly early on as the story and the world sank its teeth into me. At about only 90 mins long, there is a lot in the plot in terms of thematical material whether its spirituality, Gods, the infinite spiral of existence, Death, cycles of humanity, the pursuit of knowledge and the ego and pride that can arise, and such that can make you ruminate all seamlessly embued into the story that is being told by a shaman/witch/sorcerer and in an entertaining fashion. It also felt fresh, something original amongst the sea of sameness and is what made me love this film. Since it is an adult animated feature, it doesn't shy away from nudity and violence/gore, especially the latter of which there is an abundance, all well animated and gives a proper kick to the dark fantasy nature of the experience. Speaking of animation, the environment and objects were actually rendered beautifully and even though the character design and movement isn't something I'd considered attractive, it works and has its own fluid charm to it that comes with rotoscope animation. The film boasts a talented voice acting cast although I certainly did not realize any one of them whether it's Lucy Lawless or Patton Oswalt or Richard E. Grant etc during watching it. It's not amazing but it is apt for the tone and style of the film and does its job i.e it's still good. I'd wish it was slightly longer and delve a bit deeper into its characters since you hardly connect to most of them strongly as there isn't enough screentime for the majority, but still, overall, it was a great watch. Phillip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King along with the entire team did a wonderful job with this and I'd highly recommend it provided you're fine with the animation style and the adult nature of it. And if I were to rate it, I'd give it an 8/10.
