Surreal Adventures, Unsettling Horror: 8 Great Animated Movies You Probably Never Heard Of

Surreal journeys beyond reality

Mind Game follows a shy young man who becomes entangled with the yakuza, dies, returns to life and escapes with the woman he loves and her sister. Their getaway leads them inside an enormous whale, where much of the film unfolds.

The story seems to shift between the protagonist’s mind and dreams, making its events hard to pin down. Rather than offering easy explanations, the film delivers an unusual and compelling ride.

The Wolf House takes a very different approach, using horror to unsettle viewers. Its story follows a young woman, played by Amalia Kassai, who escapes a prison camp and finds shelter in a strange house.

Unnerving animation techniques

The Wolf House is remembered as much for its atmosphere as for its loose narrative. It combines stop-motion and hand-drawn animation on surfaces such as walls, within three-dimensional sets.

The filmmakers make the movie appear to have been filmed in one take, alongside other hard-to-grasp techniques. Its disturbing mood and striking technical work make it an especially memorable animated horror film.

Short films with big questions

Tux and Fanny runs 82 minutes and brings together dozens of short films, each about one or two minutes long, to tell a single story. The title characters live alone in a house near the woods and encounter a string of strange misadventures.

Mostly presented in an 8-bit style, the film occasionally shifts into other visual modes. Its humor and sadness sit alongside ideas about existentialism and whether life has a purpose; the creator makes it available free on YouTube.

A childhood remembered in animation

Richard Linklater’s Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood has had some Netflix promotion, but it has not reached as many viewers as might be expected. The film shares themes with Linklater’s 1993 coming-of-age movie Dazed and Confused.

Its distinctive animation, engaging characters and humor make for a pleasant, breezy watch. The film offers another example of animation’s range, beyond the best-known studio classics.