Goethe’s Derl Erlkönig: A Film by Raymond Salvatore Harmon

Really frightening film adaptation of Goethe’s Der Erlkönig. Raymond Salvatore Harmon made this film that revels in the dark terror of fairy tales. It’s a densely layered film that conveys the sense of riding through the forest beautifully.  Those trees keep going by and the dolls bounce along on their horse.  Amazing! I love terrifying fairy tales!  A child, held tight in his father’s arms, senses a supernatural being of some sort approaching.  You’ve got to pay attention to this one right up to the end!

Hazardous Players Tell Tales of Hilarious Chivalry

What we have here is an enormous tale of medieval chivalry, dragon lore, heraldry, round-tableness, and the insane goings-on of knights and their goonish glory.  The magnificent squad of funny men behind these tales of audio craziness call themselves The Hazardous Players.  Their ongoing comic production is a series of tales called Knighttime, which follows the lunatic adventures of Sirs Cottington and Bratwurst through the kingdom of Udenland.

Give a listen to the first episode, called The Problem in Pimpleton – Act I:

The audio stories are full of eccentricity reminiscent of Monty Python, Firesign Theater, Shakespeare, Douglas Adams,Terry Prachette and Christopher Moore.  They contain great bits of self-referential humor and constantly break out of the stories to comment on the very story that they find themselves in.  Characters do odd things like take breaks to go off to the bathroom.  They get enthusiastic when the laugh track goes off and start playing to the audience for more laughs.  It’s hilarious and engages the listener in the wonderful world of pure storytelling.  This kind of silliness that works so well is very hard to find and makes the Web a pure joy when you do find it.

The Hazardous Players have built a web site (www.hazardousplayers.com) around their world of funny characters, complete with sketches and a blog that chronicles various happenings in their story kingdom.  The audio is of excellent production value and uses music and incidental sounds with great precision and comic effect.  The vocal performances are magnificently ludicrous and enable the listener to clearly imagine each character in perfect detail. I look forward to many more episodes in the silly kingdom of Udenland.

Animation: The Forest

David Scharf made this lovely animated film called The Forest. A young girl uses her imagination in a world that doesn’t fit her well. She resists being drawn into the ordinary life she sees around her for as long as she can.

The animation is beautiful and the film has a dark, smokey look. It’s a story told simply and with a delicate touch.

I found this via my favorite film site, No fat clips!!!