Orca and Arcade Deliver Spine Tingling Animations for Halloween Season

Halloween is here and for all you horror freaks out there, turn the lights off, sit back and relax or cower behind a cushion in fear because we’ll be taking a deep dive into these spooky films by NERDY Orca and Arcade director teams.

Arcade provides endless Halloween spookiness with their latest animation for Apple bringing a playful and wicked sense of energy to the table. Sidenote, no vampires were harmed during the making of the film!

Ed and Nelly over at Orca have done a few projects over the years for the scariest holiday of the year. Including their delightful deranged ‘Halloween’ short that creates a sense of dread and unease in what can be described as an existential chase sequence. The animation style is reminiscent of prime Cartoon Network if it fused with the unsettling body horror of John Carpenter’s The Thing which is to say it’s pretty messed up…

When commenting on the film, Orca said, “We wanted to create something for Halloween and thought about those nightmares you have when you're running from something and you can't seem to get away - that was the starting point. For the imagery itself we didn't take influence from anything in particular, we just started drawing and came up with this monster which we found quite funny/ terrifying. We then filmed video reference for the animation as this is always really useful for timing and capturing acting decisions that you might not think about when drawing. For the background we wanted to continue on this dream/nightmare train of thought and created a barren desolate place where you would always be able to see the monster chasing you.”

Another ghoulishly horrifying project Orca worked on was for a show within a show for the fifth season of the BBC and HBO show 'Strike'. The animation is inspired by point and click video games. Perfectly blends Orca’s trademark style with the themes and atmosphere of the programme.

Orca discussed the creative process working on Strike, 'At the beginning, the main point of reference was the artwork of Jan Pieńkowski, however as we developed the look further (with production designer Hugo Cuellar) we moved away from pure silhouettes as we wanted to show the character's expression and all the details of the heart character. The use of shadows, silhouetted shapes against a marbled sky carried through though, which we think works really well. For the video game sections, we looked at video chat games such as Club Penguin and then wondered how they would look with a more gothic twist. It was also important for the plot that we referenced a real section of Highgate Cemetery, which proved a really rich source of inspiration when it came to the types of architecture and foliage we included in the background art.

Working with the client, (Bronte films, the production company that makes the Strike series), was really fun and super collaborative.”

Ed and Nelly of Orca shared the films that scared and influenced them.

Ed said, “I was particularly scarred by Nightmare on Elm Street, which I saw when I was 14. It really stuck with me and I definitely had that in mind when we created our first Halloween microshort.”

Nelly said, “The Exorcist is one that really disturbed when I was young (and still does) - it's so scary, but also grotesque and incredibly uncomfortable to watch. It must have influenced something on a subconscious level!”