¡QUÉ HORROR! 2017

Candidate #12

SEOUL-YEOK

(SEOUL STATION)
(April 2016)

Yeon Sang-ho's animated prequel to Busanhaeng (Train to Busan) actually plays better than its live-action sequel, and that’s probably all down to the fact that it’s a more atypical zombie cinema viewing experience than Busanhaeng.

Why is that, you may ask?

To wit:

A: Animated zombies are far more uncommon than live-action ones.

B: Unlike Busanhaeng, we don’t really see your usual zombie cinema character types here.

C: The social commentary is far more satisfactorily evident, with some barbed rants against country and government. And the class divide is likewise more overt here.

It should be noted though that there are some rather cruel and vicious moments in this one, some moments having nothing at all to do with the zombies…

If that all still sounds like your cup of (zombie) tea, then take heed: ¡Qué horror! strongly approves Seoul-yeok!

(Seoul Station UK quad courtesy of impawards.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (73)
ANNECY 2008

Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues and Bill Plympton’s Idiots & Angels (both mentioned in Afterthoughts past) took home the Cristal award for Best Feature and an award for Special Distinction respectively, at the recently concluded 32nd Annecy Intl. Animated Film Festival.
Congratulations to Paley and Plympton and all the other winners and nominees this year. (Check the official Annecy website for more information.)

In the wake of the global animation boom in recent years, Annecy increased the number of possible feature films in competition from five to a maximum of ten, in 2006.
This year, nine feature films were chosen for competition from a field of nearly 50. Among the nine were Shinji Aramaki’s Ekusu makina (Appleseed Saga: Ex Machina, Adria Garcia and Victor Maldonado’s Nocturna, and Masayuki Kojima’s Piano no mori (Piano Forest).

(Sita Sings the Blues OS courtesy of ninapaley.com; image courtesy of sitasingstheblues.com [art for both by Nina Paley]; Idiots & Angels images courtesy of idiotsandangels.com [art by Bill Plympton].)