Web Animation Watch: Halloween Special 2020
Welcome back, web wanderers. Looking for the best in online animation? Then wander no more, as AFA's Web Animation Watch will round up the latest and the greatest for you. You're welcome. This week it's our Halloween special, so we bring you some scares, some laughs and a whole lot of awesome animation!
If you've made something- be it a web short, web series episode, student film, a music video or something else- you think would be a good fit for a future column, or if you've just found something cool, please drop us a line.
🎃 My Friend Who Shines At Night
★PICK OF THE WEEK 1★ In this latest film from 2020's crop of Graduate films from Paris's Gobelins Animation School, a kindly man befriends a ghost who has lost their way on route to the afterlife. With the ghost having no memory of who they were, the two try to get to the bottom of it, and along the way form a bond. By turns creepy, funny, sweet and ultimately uplifting this is a superb piece of work. It's got a great-and unmistakably French- artstyle too. In French with optional English subtitles.
🎃 Scary Stories | Simon's Cat
If you like your Halloween more cute than scary then this year's Simon's Cat Halloween special has you covered. Part of Simon's Cat's success is in how true to life it portrays feline behaviour- but it's always had a more cartoony side too (The Cat's baseball bat making an appearance in the very first short). In this episode, with a hedgehog telling our feline friend scary stories to try and spook him, this is definitely much more of one of the cartoony ones. And there's nothing wrong with that! You can also check out a Halloween themed compilation of episodes here.
🎃 La Noria
★PICK OF THE WEEK 2★ Pixar and ILM alum Carlos Baena made this spooky short with the help of a crowdsourced team of over 100 people from around the world. A young grieving boy encounters some scary looking critters, in this incredible piece of work. Exquisitely animated and genuinely creepy, it's a genuine piece of animated horror,
🎃 Doom: Animal Crossing Demons
Cutsie Nintendo franchise Animal Crossing is the last thing you expect to find in a Halloween special, but that's those scamps at Mashed for you. Two demons from Doom decide to take a break on the Animal Crossing island, and find all is not as innocent as it first appears... You'll never look at Isobel in quite the same way again.
