The Spine of Night
The rotoscoped animated fantasy is a gleeful geek culture throwback to gore- and boob-fest films like "Wizards" and "Heavy Metal." Ralph Bakshi would approve.
This review is free content for everyone. Please support Film Yap with a subscription to receive all our premium articles and exclusive opportunities — now at a huge discount!
“The Spine of Night” is not for everyone. But if you’re a particular type of film lover who’s into gory, naughty animation from the sci-fi/sword-&-sorcery tradition, then it’s going to be right in your depraved wheelhouse.
This rotoscoped animation film from writer/directors Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King is in the tradition of “Heavy Metal,” “Fire and Ice,” “Wizards” and other films from the very brief heyday this sub-genre enjoyed in the late 1970s to early ‘80s.
Think copious nudity, guts and brains sprayed across the screen with unapologetic glee and dark crusades against power-mad villains bringing their doom to the world. Ralph Bakshi would approve.
I could almost tell where “Spine” would land based on some of the high-profile vocal talent involved: Lucy Lawless, Patton Oswalt, Richard E. Grant and Joe Manganiello — figures who are products of, and enthusiastic adherents to, geek culture.
This movie feels like a bunch of Gen Xers getting together to make a degenerate flick like the kind they set their VCRs to record off Cinemax in the dead of night so their parents wouldn’t know about it. They probably still have those tapes somewhere.
Literally the first thing we see in the movie is Tzod, a swamp witch voiced by Lawless, trudging up a snow-blasted mountain. She has no clothes, other than a skull headpiece, necklace and few trinkets, and indeed she spends the entire movie stark naked.
At least, you know right away what you’re in for.
Tzod is one of several major characters in the tale of a magical flower bloom that holds untapped powers. We watch as it corrupts humans over the course of centuries, sort of like the evil glowy orb in “Heavy Metal.”
As the story opens, Tzod is journeying to confront the ancient Guardian (Grant) who protects the mother bloom — and mankind from knowledge of its terrible potential. We see an early iteration when Tzod, who used the magic to protect her swamp and its people, is captured by the tyrannical Lord Pyrantin (Oswalt) with the aid of his barbarian henchman, Mongrel (Manganiello).
Ghal-Sur (Jordan Douglas Smith) is one of the Asher Scholars, a secretive force of knowledge and counsel, who is sent to Pyrantin’s safehold to record the events for posterity. (Think of the maesters from “A Song of Fire and Ice” aka “Game of Thrones.”)
However, upon seeing Tzod’s ability to use the bloom’s petals to create scorching fire and other spells, he decides to steal it for himself after killing her… though we shall see how lasting that is.
In the next time slip, Ghal-Sur has become the enslaved thrall of the Inquisitor (Larry Fessenden) of the scholars, who now call themselves the Pantheon, who are less concerned with using their knowledge to help others as hoard power and food as famine wreaks the land.
Betty Gabriel voices Phae-Agura, a trusted lieutenant who starts to grasp the true nature of the Inquisitor. Let’s just say… there will be blood.
As the years pass, Ghal-Sur becomes a tyrannical figure marching his armies across the world conquering all he sees, eventually becoming a self-proclaimed god/king who can do things like make a giant eyeball appear out of his torso. In this final steampunk-y iteration, he and his flying war machine are opposed by the last great city around, including a trio of warriors who wear masks and wings. They’re like bird ninjas, or something.
These episodes are framed as stories told by Tzod to the Guardian, though he also gets his own tale where he provides the mythological background of the bloom and the gods from which it spawned.
The overarching theme is a depressing one: power corrupts in an ageless cycle of killing and revenge that can never truly be broken. The magical bloom is but the seed of our ability to wreak terror upon each other.
Fun stuff!
Rotoscoping, in which live filmed action is overlaid with animation, results in an intentionally simplistic-looking cartoony style without a lot of detail, which tends to be saved for the backgrounds. The action definitely has a kinetic zip to it, as bodies are hewn, hacked, perforated and shred.
“The Spine of Night” doesn’t have an MPAA rating, but if it did would surely be a hard R or even NC-17 (though it’s rarely given out these days).
I think at this point you’re either completely horrified by the prospect of watching this movie or can’t wait to dive into the gleeful gore- and boob-fest that is. You have been sufficiently warned, or titillated.