Suckablood

Just a quick warning first – this may not be for the faint hearted or very young!  It is a cautionary tale for adults – if you have offspring refusing to stop sucking their thumbs then try not to take your aversion therapy too far! There must be a less bloody cure for thumb sucking than this, after all!

This is the story of Tilly who, like any pretty girl in a gothic horror fairy tale, has an evil stepmother.  The stepmother threatens her with the monster Suckablood if she insists on sucking her thumb again. What happens next is, well, that’s up to you to find out!

Written and directed by Ben Tillett and Jake Cuddihy and produced by Ben Franklin (yet another American President founding father in on the horror act, it seems), Suckablood is the fifth and latest of what is planned to be thirteen installments in a horror anthology known as Bloody Cuts – and you can find the previous four on the team’s eponymous website. You can also join their Facebook Page if it takes your fancy!

Just in case you feel disinclined to go and see the rest of them (and have got this far without watching the short film), take note! None other than Stephen Fry has donated to the making of this short horror. Fry, who was impressed with the previous four installments (which all work as standalone shorts), put something in to the hat of the filmmakers to help them get through the production costs of such an ambition series (full story here). Nice one Stephen! So, go on, watch the rest and scare yourself (or younger persons of the household) silly.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Wilde's Classic Animated in 8 Minutes

The only novel written by Oscar Wilde, his 1890 work The Picture of Dorian Gray is regarded as a classic work of gothic literature. Its strong Faustian themed storyline tells of a young and beautiful upper class man. Basil Hallward, a painter, creates a portrait of the good looking aristocrat. Dorian sees it unveiled and whimsically announces that he would sell his soul so the portrait could grow old rather than he. The wish, as you might expect, is fulfilled.

This is an 8 Minute adaptation of Picture of Dorian Gray.  It represents Thomas Beg’s 15 week Major Project at UCA Rochester as part of his CG Arts and Animation degree. It is exceptionally well done, retaining the gothic eeriness of the original as well as ably pulling the story in to eight minutes. Perhaps it is best if you have read the book or seen one of the movies before, but if you are studying the novel this could very easily beat Cole’s Notes when it comes to helping you remember the sequence of events!

Yet if you are a Wilde fan (are they called Wilde-oholics, Wildeans or even wildebeasts?) you will adore this, as I did. The use of black and white seems more than appropriate and the use of shadow is superb.  Although I can only guess I suspect Oscar would have approved.

Please note – I have resized the animation so it can fit in to a window here – the original was somewhat larger but I thought most people would be unable to view it properly that way. If you click full screen you will get the full effect!