You’ve probably never seen anything quite like The Spine of Night before, and at the same time, you’ve probably seen a lot like The Spine of Night before. Heavy Metal, Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings, Ralph Bakshi in general, Conan the Barbarian, Mad Max – but without the gasoline, mind – and Studio Ghibli films, to name just a few that spring obviously to mind. To note, that’s the side of Ghibli that’s all grunge and despair, the Nausicaäs and Laputas, not the Ponyos and Kikis in that studio’s considerable catalogue.
Rotoscoped, like any true Ralph Bakshi homage, The Spine of Night features the voice, but not the mo-cap, talents of Lucy Lawless, Richard E. Grant, Patton Oswalt as a minor-ish character, and even genre cinema’s favourite thug/weirdo, Larry Fessenden. Tzod (Lawless) opens the film on an arduous struggle up a mountainside to speak to The Guardian (Grant), in search for a mystical blue flower that might restore balance to the world. Then a series of flashbacks take us through hundreds of years of warfare, corruption, extreme gore, and nudity.
It’s that type of film. Be sure, if you purchase the disc, to check out Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King’s previous animated shorts set within the same universe, “Mongrel” and “Exordium”. For that matter, check out the making-of too. It’s worth it.
★★★★☆