VividSimon Simply Perfect

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Robert Reynolds This short was nominated for an Oscar for Animated Short. There will be spoilers: This short starts out with the titular character standing on a train station platform with all the baggage of a human life with her. She suddenly winds up on board a train with said baggage in the strangest train compartment possible. Robert Bloch would be impressed. A strange chess game and the creepiest tennis player ever round out the background to Madame's journey into a nightmare.Madame recovers from an enforced "sleep" to find herself in an otherwise empty compartment after having a "dream" or "nightmare" which may or may not have been imagined. She winds up out in the corridor and goes deeper into the strangeness. Ultimately, this leads to a fascinating and visually beautiful, if predictable ending.This has given me more than a few shudders and is rather creepy but is also visually fascinating and exceptional in its detail. The plot is relatively simple and a bit obvious in spots. But it's an excellent example of stop motion animation and very memorable.A production of the National Film Board of Canada, this short is well worth watching and most recommended.

tieman64 Directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, "Madame Tutli-Putli" is a somewhat groundbreaking stop-motion animation. The macabre film, which reportedly took over five years to produce, revolves around Madame Tutli-Putli, a frail looking woman who boards a midnight train. She's shown carrying a lot of extra baggage, both physical and psychological, the latter of which may or may not play a part in the bizarre nightmare which she experiences during her midnight journey. It's a nightmare rife with strange sights, grotesque visions and a plot in which freakish train robbers sneak aboard the train, cut open a man's stomach and steals his kidneys. Whether these events are really happening, are a nightmare, or are manifestations of the woman's warped personality – her misreading of real but far less sinister events – is left entirely up to the audience. Figuring out exactly what's going on is part of the film's charm.It's technique rather than content which elevates "Madame Tutli-Putli", though. The directors, for example, used composited human eyes, which lend their characters a creepy, life-like quality. More jaw dropping is the film's second half, which essentially invents a kind of stop-motion "shaky-cam". Stop-motion, of course, is usually a rigid affair, with stiff camera work. But here the film-makers have recreated an extremely free-form, almost cinema-verite quality. This must have been a nightmare to shoot, Szczerbowski's camera needing constant micro set-ups and micro adjustments. No wonder the film took five years to create. Harryhausen and Aardman never attempted anything quite like this.8/10 – Worth one viewing.

SisterClodagh This was an astounding, haunting little film. The protagonist has this eerie Buster Keaton look about her and the subtlety and realism of her expressions is extraordinary. It's like no stop motion animation I've ever seen. The protagonist is this small, put upon woman who embarks on a train journey with what appear to be all her worldly possessions. She speaks not a word the entire time, but her gestures and her giant silent film star eyes are incredibly evocative as she faces small insults and later very real threats on her journey. Try to catch a screening of this amazing tiny gem if you can, or order it via Netflix. It's absolutely worth it.

dromasca This short animated movie shows has style and impressive graphics. Characters are modeled on real actors who are credited and this gives personality to each of them. Using real filmed eyes (as I understand) also helps to create a very striking effect.There is no story really here, but just a fragment of life and fantasy located in the 30s in a train trip in the immense Canadian landscape that somehow slides into mystery, imagination and dreams. It works well for the first 12-13 minutes out of the 17 of the movie, but somehow the whole stuff gets tired and not that I expected a conclusion but I felt the ending is inconclusive not from the story-telling but from an artistic point of view. Anyway, the folks who made this movie are real artists and trying their talent on a longer and more consistent film could be an interesting proposal.