"The Canal"

| Corben movies |

| "The Canal", a poem |

Canal

Year: 2000. Length: 3 min 39 sec (March 2005: Existing clip on Corben Website was 1 min 32 sec and 8,8 Mb. / New Year 2009 there was entire animation as a Flash video).
Style: CG animation. Genre: Horror. Female VO: Tonya Compbell. Music: Tim Higgins.
Based on: H.P. Lovecraft poem, "The Canal". Comics story adaptation: "The Canal".
Published: Lurker in the Lobby, Vol. II: The Best of the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival (Nov. 2000) VHS-cassette. [Movies]

Animation: Animation starts with "H.P. Lovecraft / Fungi From Yuggoth / XXIV" and "The Chanal" and oozing water or thick liquid. Light comes between clouds, we can see some buildings and running water. Female VO reads an (entire) poem "The Canal". You can see a fade nude female figure and a skull through water, and a drown body near water fall. Scene follows with a camera pan above laying skeletons covered with flies. Smoke, piles of dead bodies and silhuetto of skycrapers. Bright light. Silhuetto of a clothed figure. Wind is dancing on a figure's cloak. Broken wall and standing still figure. Wind is still playing with cloak. Figure appears to be a bold, nude female. Scenes with running water. Empty windowed buildings break down into pieces leaving behind big dust clouds. Animation ends with "as imagined by Richard Corben" and "the last witness was played by Tonya Compbell" and "music by Tim Higgins".
Comment: Very strong dreamy mood. It uses a cloth animation on a cloak and the cloak swrils in the air and wind nicely. Realistic water effect in the beginning, flies and smoke has been made also by some kind of automatic particle animation.
Comparing Adaptations: Both adaptations circles around same theme. In comic version, we've got a dark skinned couple, in animation version you can see only a female figure, who is gray as buildings. One can see her as a statue. The last witness is only a VO.

"The Canal", animation