La Casa Lobo (2018): A blood-curdling stop motion achievement
Academy Award-winning director Guillermo Del Toro once said: “Animation is not a genre for kids. It's a medium.” This couldn’t be a more fitting statement; the art form of animation has the potential to tell an infinite number of stories, and its roots are tied to the very beginning of the motion picture. However, the animation medium is seldom used to create a horror story—seeing it as a taboo.
When most people think of an animated horror film, the first things that occur to them are the stop-motion films of Henry Selick, such as The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Coraline (2009), and Wendell And Wild (2022). Others might recall frightening elements in early films produced by Walt Disney, like Lampwick’s transformation in Pinocchio (1940) or the Fantasia (1940) segment “Night on Bald Mountain.” These add up to mundane scares or visceral elements, but every once in a while, the art form is used to unsettle the viewer, and in recent years, this was best exemplified by the Chilean film La Casa Lobo (2018), known overseas as The Wolf House (2018).
On the surface, La Casa Lobo is a simple pseudo-retelling of “The Three Little Pigs.” Maria, a girl living in “the Colony,” runs away to avoid the punishment of not contributing to their society and instead playing with farm animals. After her escape, she runs from the wolf—a figure nefariously set on pursuing her—and finds a perceived sanctuary within a house whose only residents are two pigs. As the movie progresses, Maria raises the pigs as her pseudo children within the confines of the house, unable to leave due to the wolf’s perpetual prowling, monitoring her new home like its life depends on it.
La Casa Lobo is deeply rooted in Chilean history, specifically an actual colony founded in post-WWII-era Chile called “Colonia Dignidad,” represented through the Colony. The film opens with a fake advertisement for the Colony, stating that it was founded by a group of German people in southern Chile, secluded by nearby mountains. These people are fixated on contributing to the community and society, cemented by their motto: “Helping Makes Happiness.” The fictional advertisement for the Colony and how it is referenced in the film make it feel like propaganda for a cult… because it is.
Colonia Dignidad was a private colony of mostly German people, many of which were former members of the Nazi party. This place was known for brutal methods of punishment to dissenters and consistent, reprehensible abuse. Also, the ever-present unsettling voice of the Wolf is based on Colonia Dignidad’s most consistent leader, Paul Schäfer—a child molester who had escaped justice from West Germany in 1961, later hiding out in Chile under the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The Wolf speaks in calm, almost fatherly tones, sometimes in Spanish but occasionally in German, implying that he, like Schäfer, is a leader of the Colony. Without giving too much of the ending away, Maria is saved by the Wolf and returns to the Colony. However, it feels off, as it is narrated by the Wolf, meaning Maria most likely experienced a rather unfortunate fate.
This film is one of the most original concepts for an animated film I have ever seen; something genuinely surprising, as it is an adaptation of a classic children’s story. The entire film is animated in front of a camera inside a house. The characters and objects are painted on the walls and constructed on the floor using masking tape and wigs. As the characters move, there are multiple imperfections in the animation’s skin, hair, structure, and consistency, adding an eerie, uncomfortable aspect to the film, further supported by the vocal performances. Most, if not all, are in whispers and performed so close to the microphone that listening with headphones qualifies as ASMR, at least to me. If not already evidently clear, every element of this film compounds to create something genuinely haunting and engaging, making it stand as one of the most unique horror films I have ever seen!
La Casa Lobo (2018) thrives on its unsettling visuals and tone without relying on cheap jumpscares or typical horror-genre musical cues. For example, when its characters burn in fire, they do not die or be engulfed hyperbolically; instead, they slowly deteriorate as the sounds of fire spread, creating putrid and haunting visuals you cannot find anywhere else. Overall, the film is a triumph for the cause of animation as a limitless medium! This dark, disturbing fantasy, deeply rooted in real history, has so much horror on the surface, which is deepened through the horrible truths lurking just beneath the stop motion. If you’d like to experience the horrors of La Casa Lobo (2018), and I highly suggest you do it for yourself, it is currently available to stream for free on Tubi!