Not many can craft a trailer that leaves you intrigued and fearfully anticipating its accompanying film release, but directors Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña have. In the official North American trailer for their stop-motion animated film, La casa lobo (The Wolf House), viewers get a peek into the film’s focus — a specific disturbing, evil time in Chilean history — told in an innovative and formative way.
The Chilean film, which plays with a darkened palette, is based loosely on the grim case of Colonia Dignidad, a German émigré-run colony in post-WWII Chile that was revealed to have been used to imprison, torture, and murder dissidents during the Pinochet regime. León and Cociña award-winning first feature, after working on a series of shorts, tells “the grim fairy tale of Maria, a young woman who finds refuge in a house in the south of Chile after escaping from a sect of German religious fanatics. She is welcomed into the home by two pigs, the only inhabitants of the place. As in a dream, the universe of the house reacts to Maria’s feelings. The animals transform slowly into humans and the house becomes a nightmarish world.” It’s a fairy tale rooted in horrific real life events.
Watch the trailer below, and we won’t judge if you do while covering your eyes.
The Wolf House will be available to be screened virtually starting Friday, May 15, 2020.