The Wolf House 2018
Directed by Cristóbal León, Joaquín Cociña · 74 mins · 1,808 views
Synopsis
Trailers
Reviews (93)
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discussion of triggering topics below la colonia dignidad was established in 1961 by a man named paul schafer. schafer had fled west germany, with several hundred other people, to chile so that he could create his colony undisturbed. it was an isolated place, dedicated to returning to the old ways of pre-industrial germany. the members of the colony wore traditional garb, and lived highly regimented lives. from the outside, they seemed like harmless eccentrics. the community leaders projected an image of harmony and simplicity. they sang traditional folk songs. they made honey. they offered free services to the surrounding community. the bright and homey trappings disguised a very dark, sinister reality. schafer had originally fled germany because of pedophilia charges.…
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Puppets are scary. Stop motion papier-mâché continuously morphing reality is horrifying.
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Mesmerizing! Very creepy but entertaining! Very dark and twisted subject but At first not sure if it is horror! More Artistic horror for the rest of the movie. It looks like paper machete done like claymation. Some looks disturbing but not sure if it is attempting to look disturbing at moments though at other times it is attempting to look very disturbing. If you get a chance check it out! I had to rent it from Fandango.
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‘I keep the wolf from the door But he calls me up Calls me on the phone Tells me all the ways that he’s gonna mess me up Steal all my children If I don’t pay the ransom But I’ll never see ’em again If I squeal to the cops’ – A Wolf at the Door, Radiohead How do you deal with atrocities and historical horrors on film? I think about this a lot, about the weight of responsibility. How do we hew art out of horror, out of real horror? Should we? Can we? Further to this, how do we create items, items that then depend on a trauma in the past, that are supposed to be evaluated and…
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It seems a cruel trick of evolution that our worst experiences store themselves in uniquely painful, seemingly tyrannical ways. Unlike memories of a birthday party or what you had for breakfast, traumatic memories can seep into our very bodies, souls, and color our perceptions. Even with an amount of time and distance that one would think would be enough for layers of scar tissue to form, a mere smell or sound can seize one back to the initial terrorizing event. Filmmakers Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León explore this concept on micro and macro levels in their stop-motion masterpiece and obvious labor of love “The Wolf House.” The movie’s opening scene informs us that the animated piece we are about to…
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The Wolf House is proper surreal cinema, grounded in breathtaking originality and an incredible animated style. The tone is always unsettling, as the film becomes descends into the abstract. The Wolf House is jagged and bumpy, not smooth, in both the textures of the materials and the camera movement. Objects are incomplete, growing and falling part. The Wolf House explores the effects of fascism, through a woman escaping her past and her nightmares, making us confront the abuse and atrocities of the past. Drawing from Chilean history, this is a film of the effects of the past. Both in the Nazi remnants found in Chile decades after Nazi defeat, and the modern world looking back at Chile’s own past. The…
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It might be hyperbolic or unhelpful to label Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña’s “The Wolf House” as the darkest animated movie ever made, but merely describing this stop-motion nightmare should be enough to explain the impulse. A grimmer-than-Grimm fairy tale inspired (and ostensibly produced) by Colonia Dignidad — the cult-like Chilean enclave founded by German fugitive Paul Schäfer, an insatiable pedophile who raped the members of his community, provided shelter to Nazi war criminals like Josef Mengele, and tortured Pinochet’s enemies in exchange for his support — “The Wolf House” takes the age-old story of the Three Little Pigs and filters it through the warped mind of a profoundly traumatized little girl until it no longer resembles a fable so…
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ya fucking kidding me, right? they went and utilized an entire house for stop-motion? painting anything and everything? 2D interacting with 3D and vice versa? everything being de/re/constructed at once. this is bewilderingly good.
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If you watch this in one sitting the phone automatically rings and seven days later Paul Schäfer comes for you.
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IIan Lindsey 8 月 26, 2026
This is a difficult film to rate especially when many of the references ended up going right over my head. The Wolf House is the story of Colonia Dignidad told through a fairy tale/nightmare about a girl who takes up residence in an abandoned house while running from a wolf. Colonia Dignidad was a compound in Chile that for decades housed a cult led by Paul Schafer, a German who fled his country to escape charges of pedophilia. The colony was the site of a range of atrocities that included child sexual abuse, the torture and disappearing of political prisoners, and the physical and mental abuse of its members. The place also had ties to Nazi war criminals and the…
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i am both extremely impressed and extremely creeped out by this
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This is so cool
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Não entendi 100% a história, mas é um filme bem diferente e bom. Nunca vi um stop-motion parecido com esse filme e creio que nem exista.
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No entendí media parte, pero cine
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Me importa poco el contexto, la película es mala aunque mole cómo está hecha
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Literal cada audioguía en español de berlin
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Continuerò a ripeterlo: tra i più interessanti al mondo, c’è di sicuro il cinema latino, che sia spagnolo o centro-americano o sud-americano. ● La stopmotion risulta qualcosa di iper-vero, paradossalmente, dichiarando con orgoglio esplicito la propria artigianalità e dunque la propria finzione. ● La casa lobo è l’opera in stopmotion più bella che di recente abbia visto. E non si tratta di una stopmotion deliberata, per un pubblico alternativo, con l’unico intento di rimandare a un’estetica vintage. Perchè qui l’animazione…
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Destructive cult trauma seen through the lens of a experimental stop-motion animation
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j’ai regardé ce film en plein sevrage de clopes, franchement c’était lunaire, j’avais le visage en compote, le vertige en stop-motion, bizarrement c’était doux ; j’avoue ne pas avoir bien compris où menait l’histoire, la narration, etc., mais visuellement c’est magnifique et très hypnotisant, ça bouge toujours ça ouvre les yeux, ça coince le regard, et ça suffit, j’avais des flashs de lucidité, c’était un rêve je recommande grave, et dans tous les états ; je crois que c’était les…
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“The wolf will protect us.” Such a surreal way to describe trauma and abuse. Maria is so abused, but she has spent so long in such a manipulative atmosphere that she has become institutionalized, ultimately giving up her real freedom at the end. 75 MINUTES OF PURE STOP MOTION MAGIC.
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Siempre pasaba algo que te incitaba a seguir viendo,no soy fan del cine experimental Pero es de cabronas admitir que la animación es otro pedo,ni me quiero imaginar cuántas horas(o años alvrg,creo que es probable) que tardarán haciendo esto,Pero lograron está ambientacion “perturbadora”,está increíble
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Es la película mas deprimente que vi en mi vida. Me encanta mucho la atmósfera, el estilo artístico, la historia que cuenta y la que no cuenta y lo perturbador que puede llegar a ser, en momentos literalmente quede como “¿Que esta pasando?” porque la animación puede llegar a ser confusa Me gusta que el lobo representa tanto a una persona real como el pasado, los traumas y el inconsciente de Maria El mensaje final es muy reflexivo realmente, la…
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Nem todo filme se entende, nem todo filme é feito para ser entendido logo de primeira ou de forma fácil, e tá tudo bem!! A trajetória ainda sim é muito interessante com um stop motion FODA, e mensagens sobre: juventude (talvez), maternidade (eu acho) e problemas interiores (isso é certeza).
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¿Retratar el trauma en stop motion?, la mejor idea que he escuchado en mi vida
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What the fuck, I’m now scared of blonde people
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Si me perturbo la vdd, no entendi de lo que iba pero luego de leer un poco sobre ella me parece muy visceral, interesante propuesta
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Ccrpz_lerma 8 月 24, 2026
wow
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‘La casa Lobo’, o ‘The Wolf House’, è un film d’animazione viscerale e fortemente visionario in stop-motion. La tecnica utilizzata tuttavia è così innovativa e particolare che merita subito un plauso gigantesco. Le figure prendono tridimensionalità e si dissolvono in pitture parietali bidimensionali per poi riacquisire un corpo continuamente, sullo sfondo veri ambienti di gallerie d’arte che continuano a degradarsi e restaurarsi mentre la mobilia e gli arredi si muovono spinti da una forza ignota. L’azione è trasmessa benissimo, in…
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A beautiful nightmare. So eerie and emotionally tacit. I was mesmerized by the animation and some of the choices to re/de-construct the world. I don’t think films like this are meant to be fully understood. They are meant to be felt. Great watch!
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La animación me dejó sin palabras, no podía dejar de verla e imaginar el tremendo trabajo detrás de ella. Me fascinó. Desconocía totalmente el verdadero trasfondo de esta película pero luego de investigar, me encantó la representación y hasta me llama a seguir conociendo la historia chilena.
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im so fucking bad at verbalizing my thoughts and writing about shit but just know this is the best movie i have ever had the honor of watching and i think everyone else should watch it too
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GGabriel Blank 8 月 23, 2026
I probably should have read some more on Colonia Dignidad before watching. A deeply nauseating experience. My brain avoided getting on its wavelength almost right away.
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Such an intricate and impactful depiction of sexual abuse and indoctrination. Never seen anything like this before, truly an incredible work of art.
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impossível isso existir
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na onda do peachfuzz, de creep, quis rever e mostrar pra renato la casa lobo. é mais mágica que filme.
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por lo general no dejo un peli sin acabar, pero esta se lleva el premio se me hizo muy aburrida y pretenciosa. No me importa la historia que haya detrás de esto, se sintió como una tortura verla. Intenta ser artistica pero termina siendo muy pesada
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Excellently crafted, visually interesting but might I suggest that if you’re hungover on a Sunday and you want to watch a film about Nazis, you should watch Indiana Jones. This, as Indy once said, belongs in a museum
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Not a fun viewing experience. But serious respect for the insane level of craftsmanship. It also taught me about Chile’s Colonia Dignidad. I think if I had that knowledge prior to watching, my experience would have been completely different.
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Três porquinhos, mas é metáfora para uma menina fugindo dum pdf naz1. Tenso o filme inteiro. E eles pintaram a casa inteira para a stop motion (?!)
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really really fucking good holy shit
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Nazis are bad Update after reading some context: so are paedophiles, so Nazi paedophiles is intersectional evil, reading about Paul Schäfer was interesting after I’d watched it. Obviously this was a stunningly crafted film, but I think maybe don’t watch it hungover on a Sunday afternoon and do some reading about Colonia Dignidad first.
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Ddeannachapman 8 月 23, 2026
Insanely impressive from a technical perspective, but I ended up checking out about 45 minutes in because it was giving me a headache.
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Crazy film, and one I kind of want to rewatch in the near future. I feel like it put me into a delirious state where I was in and out of sleep constantly and kept having these weird micro dreams / nightmares of what was happening and then I’d wake up and that wouldn’t be happening but it what I would be seeing was equally confusing and disturbing. The craft alone is so interesting but the vibe it creates is…
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AAstrozero 8 月 22, 2026
Personalmente non saprei in che modo valutare questo film dato che se da una parte presenta uno stile allucinate e veramente inquietante dall’altra ha delle allegorie veramente difficili da interpretare per chi non è cileno e non ha la minima idea di cosa sta parlando la storia. Un film cileno per cileni! (a really good movie thru)
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De lo peor que he visto en mucho tiempo… me da igual el contexto histórico que quiera contar… esta película es un bodrio como no hay otro y encima la animación (pese a que tuvo que suponer un currazo por parte del equipo) no me acaba de convencer a nivel estilístico. Me choca ver que es tan aclamada y tiene tan buenas puntuaciones, absténganse de ver semejante cosa. Encima, al final de la película, se atreven a llamarnos cerdos, qué bonito remate final.
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I wish I had read the historical context of this film first en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_Dignidad Very moving and unsettling
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The way the walls and characters constantly shift is insane. If you love surreal, dark psychological horror, this live action/stop motion trip is a 10/10 must watch
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I’d watch a 3 hour making of for this film
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wow….
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One of the most harrowingly creative things I’ve ever seen. The audio is unsettling, but the paranoia and sheer psychological torment on display are something else. Absolutely nightmarish. It’s available on youtube.
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quando fui assistir, não tinha a menor ideia do que se tratava o filme, e não sabia que tinha sido inspirado num caso real. a animação é diferente de tudo que eu ja vi antes … pintando quarto por quarto da casa… construindo lentamente os personagens… me deixou muito tensa, como se não tivesse tempo para relaxar. era como se voce estivesse imaginando uma historia enquanto ela era contada. o fato de que toda a historia foi narrada com uma…
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Amazing animation. Not easy to follow the story without some background knowledge, but a fascinating watch. Nr. 228 #Horror365Challenge for 2026
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all I gotta say is that the stop motion in here is crazy!
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This was the best stop-motion propaganda film based on a real life pedophillic and torturous Nazis cult I have ever seen. Kudos.
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living in a time where AI is consistently attacking the arts & the world at large, this was so so refreshing to see. this was one of the coolest films that i’ve ever seen. i was blown away by the animation, stop motion, surrealism, and art. it was absolutely inspired. i could tell right away that this was made with so much love and passion, and i loved every second of it. it was uniquely beautiful and disturbing, and it reminded…
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Un sueño (o pesadilla debería decir) muy difícil de calificar. Mi rating actual es temporal, una vez que tenga todo el conocimiento histórico para entender mejor esta obra sin duda me apuntaría a verla una segunda vez. Eso sí, la animación y dirección de arte es increíble.
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Ggiosean_ 8 月 22, 2026
Un pugno nello stomaco. Pensare che quello che viene mostrato in questi 70 minuti di stop-motion è una versione simbolica ed edulcorata di eventi realmente avvenuti a Colonia Dignidad fa venire i brividi. Chapeau a Cristóbal León e Joaquín Cociña, che hanno messo sottosopra un’intera casa per realizzare un capolavoro visivo perturbante.
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Bunun yuzeysel bi hikayeden ziyade cogu evde olan otoriter (kurt/baba figuru ya da ona onun yerine koydugun birisi) ve onun kurallarinin uygulandigi (koloni/ev oldugunu dusundugun yer) bi yerle ilgili oldugunu dusunuyorum. Kendimizi yetersiz gordugumuz icin onlarin bizi yonetmesine izin veriyoruz, kendimizi sevilmek icin kusursuz hissetmek istiyoruz, yeri geliyor kullandirtiyoruz, yeri geliyor bu somurulmekten gizliden zevk aliyoruz buna bagimli oluyoruz ya da o dusunceleri yok sayarak iyilesecegimizi dusunmemize karsilik icimize daha cok kapaniyoruz. Bunlarin nedeni de kucuklukten asilanmis travmalarda sakli oldugu…
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La forma en que el aislamiento, el abuso y el miedo, son representados aquí de verdad asombra, pero aterra el hecho de que no es ficción.
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𑣿𑣿 8 月 21, 2026
Around the World Challenge, entrada #27. — A magic ball will help me and no one will punish me. Com inspirações claras em Chapeuzinho Vermelho e Os Três Porquinhos, The Wolf House passa longe de ser apenas uma releitura ou algo similar das obras que bebe algum tipo de inspiração. Mesclando diversos estilos de stop-motion — estilo do qual eu gosto demais —, transformou-se em um filme que mais parece um sonho perturbador, bonito e profundo; daqueles que te persegue…
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lo mas aburrido y sin sentido q he visto, perdida de tiempo mía y de los que hicieron esto 😴
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This is probably the most visually and technically elaborate and complex movie I’ve ever seen. I can’t even begin to imagine how would someone ideate, plan out and pull off even one minute of this incredible work. What a brilliant use of spaces. The house acts as a standard container where the story and the subjects inside of it unfold, but at the same time the house IS the story, is the subject, it transforms and reacts just like its…
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This one hits if ur mom has generational trauma. Love u mom ur doing a great job 🫶
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How my momma sees my room:
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i feel like i don’t know enough politics to make a witty remark but dang they are keeping the masking tape industry afloat
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Visualmente hermosa, me la recomendo mi novia ejej y es una de las películas mas únicas que he visto, con un stop motion bizarro, hipnótico y sorprendente, la película está inspirada en la historia real de colonia dignidad, una comunidad alemana en chile en la cual se cometieron abusos sexuales, torturas tanto físicas como psicológicas y muchos crímenes mas, la película logra retratarlo muy bien con la animación y los personajes que no paran de cambiar constantemente, es una película bastante incomoda y eso mismo hace que no quieras dejar de verla.
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This is good, but DAMN it creep me out. I like the organic look at this movie, they dont even hide it while they do the scene. The story is pretty intresting, at first i thought the wolf and Maria is related to toxic realtionship, but i think its, wrong ?. Idk man this thing is kinda magical,horrifying, and disturbing.
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Reminds me a lot of the William Kentridge art works, this masterpiece is at the same time scary, disturbing,and everything is just so symbolical. It’s gross, bizarre but beautiful and it’s impossible to see all of the fucking work behind every single scene by just looking at it , Joaquin Cocina and Christobal Leon are geniuses and i wanna see more of their work
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even better on the second watch
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Amazing job. Can’t really say more than what’s probably already been said about this movie.
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What the fuck. This is one of the most insane things I’ve ever seen. A technical and artistic marvel, the stop motion is on another level and there are so many incredible and creative decisions made throughout. The plot is bonkers, I don’t even really understand what was happening, but it was incredibly engaging.
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Raw. Raw in its beauty and raw in its horror. One of the few works to actually capture what nightmares feel like. I can’t think of anything like it. I am so jealous of the creativity and skill everyone involved in this film’s creation have.
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In my personal opinion I love the deconstruction of ana and Pedro’s trust and care for Maria after they are forced to change their appearances to be more German rather than Chilean. Black eyes and hair turns to blue eyes and blonde hair, their clothes go from creative garments and personal garments to traditional German clothing. Maria may have escaped the compound but the wolf is in her mind, controlling everything she does. The wolf to me is the pushing of societal norms, Maria becoming more and more weak to it as time goes on. What a beautiful movie, with some fucking amazing stop motion work.
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estoy sin palabras nunca he visto algo así antes
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Deviam ter exagerado mais no terror, os trailers faziam parecer bem mais assustador.
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i was completely mesmerized and creeped out the entire film. the amount of time and effort this stop motion animation would take is astounding.
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i was completely mesmerized and creeped out the entire film. the amount of time and effort this stop motion animation would take is astounding.
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i was completely mesmerized and creeped out the entire film. the amount of time and effort this stop motion animation would take is astounding.
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i was completely mesmerized and creeped out the entire film. the amount of time and effort this stop motion animation would take is astounding.
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Simply indescribable, devastating and claustrophobic (I.e. brilliant)
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It keeps pushing past comfort without pretending the ugliness is harmless. Every room eventually feels unsafe. Very close to a favorite.
- Synopsis
- After escaping from a religious colony in Chile, Maria seeks shelter in a mansion where she’s taken in by two pigs, its only inhabitants. Like in a stop-motion dream, the universe of the house reacts to her feelings. The animals slowly morph into humans and the house into a dark, menacing world.
- Director
- Cristóbal León, Joaquín Cociña
- Writer
- Joaquín Cociña, Cristóbal León, Alejandra Moffat
- Studio
- Diluvio, Globo Rojo
- Country
- Chile, Germany
- Language
- Spanish, German
- Year
- 2018
- Runtime
- 74 mins
- Germany22 Feb 2018
- Colombia05 Mar 2018
- Hong Kong05 Apr 2018
- South Korea11 May 2018
- Italy03 Jun 2018
- Ecuador10 Jun 2018
- France12 Jun 2018
- Brazil14 Jun 2018
- Australia29 Jul 2018
- Poland05 Aug 2018
- USA21 Sep 2018
- Spain26 Sep 2018
- Chile14 Oct 2018
- USA01 Nov 2018
- Greece08 Nov 2018
- Mexico10 Nov 2018
- Argentina14 Nov 2018
- Switzerland17 Oct 2019
- Chile01 Nov 2018
- USA20 Mar 2020
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