How the ‘Night of the Zoopocalypse’ Directors Created a Kid-Friendly Horror Pic Packed with Laughs (EXCLUSIVE CLIP)

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“With a lot of hard work and introspection you will find your adult self being entertained by childish things and your child self is intrigued by things too old to understand. To me, this is how you make the perfect family film.”

— Director Ricardo Curtis

 

From the moment a paw bursts from beneath the earth at the opening of Night of the Zoopocalypse, it’s clear where the film’s inspirations lie. The movie is an all-ages love letter to classic horror, and co-directors Ricardo Curtis (director of Ice Age: The Great Egg-Scapade, head of story on The Book of Life and Horton Hears a Who!) and Rodrigo Perez-Castro (director of Koati, story artist on Ferdinand, The Book of Life and Rio 2) say they aimed to make the kind of spooky, fun films they loved as kids. “We wanted to give audiences the kind of haunted house thrill ride that’s pretty rare in family films these days,” Curtis tells Animation Magazine.

Building from a concept from horror legend Clive Barker, the duo cites works such as Gremlins and Ghostbusters and even Suspiria as inspiring their approach to the film. But most of all, the directors stress that as an independent production, they wanted to try and choose their own path in an industry that can sometimes play it too safe.

Delivering Stylization on a Budget

When it comes to production challenges, Curtis doesn’t mince words. “There is not enough time to go through how difficult it is to make an independent animated feature film that must stand up against major studio films,” he says. One of the most important tasks was figuring out how the desired style worked with where they needed to cut corners for the budget. Curtis says they used the limitations to their advantage, such as in the textures of the characters. “We could have spent the money to create realistic fur sims, but we preferred to use those funds in other places that would have an impact on the story and the enjoyment of the film,” he explains. “We leaned into the graphic nature of the designs and chose textures that created a unique look that was both appealing and eliminated all the technical hassles that came with simulations.”

Despite the responsibility of keeping on budget, the directors enjoyed the freedom of their independence, which meant they could play with a wealth of off-kilter inspirations. “We were heavily inspired by rubber-hose designs from the early days of animation and our love for the Muppets,” Perez-Castro says of the film’s character design. “We were incredibly lucky to find a character designer who basically embodies those influences with his own unique personal twist — his name is Hadi Tabasi. The moment I saw his work on Instagram, I knew I had to contact him.”

Perez-Castro says that they worked closely, exchanging notes and draw-overs with the directors based in Canada and Tabasi in Turkey. “His signature style and sensibilities are all over this film,” he says. “There’s a cohesiveness in the style that was achieved thanks to our very small team of designers, which also included Edric Daguio and Anastasiia Platoshyna. Both of them were also incredibly influential in the creation of the characters.”

Tabasi’s design work can be felt throughout the film, with both Perez-Castro and Curtis pointing out that the artist often delivered his designs with an animation cycle to go with each mutant character he thought of. “They were so strange and kooky that it was impossible to ignore them,” Curtis says. The directors both come from the world of 2D animation, and so that’s where their minds went when considering the movement style, particularly for the zombie animals where “graphic poses are paramount.” Perez-Castro says that for the fluid animation they wanted, lots of hand-drawn preliminary tests were essential.

 

“We were heavily inspired by rubber-hose designs from the early days of animation and our love for the Muppets.”

— Director Rodrigo Perez-Castro

 

 

 

So, Tabasi’s hand-drawn tests were a godsend. “We loved them so much that not only did we use them as reference for the CG animators, but we also included them in the credits,” says Curtis. Perez-Castro adds, “Those tests served as inspiration for our animation supervisor, Nicolas Sainte-Rose, who, with his team of animators, managed to translate that 2D fluidity into CG.” He describes the drawings as being “bonkers,” a tone-setter for the rest of the staff. “We encouraged [the team] to go as wild and crazy as they could, and [they] surprised us every time with their ideas.”

But just how does the final film compare to Clive Barker’s initial concept and what, if any, adjustments were made along the way?

Curtis says that there were many changes — from characters to motivations and set pieces. “Most changes were based on drilling into the type of film we wanted to make: a gateway genre film for families,” he says. Also important was leaving room for the story artists to play — something both directors are sympathetic to, given their backgrounds. Perez-Castro adds, “We knew how important it would be for this film to take shape not only through the written word but visually. Animation is a visual medium, and so many key story ideas were born through visual explorations.”

Along with finding the right tone and visuals, other changes were more practical. “Things like character count, number of locations and SFX,” Curtis says. “To be honest, none of these revisions were very painful because Rodrigo and I and the producers were very in line with what kind of movie we were making. A benefit of being a non-studio film was we did not have anyone above us to answer to.”

Pandemic Parallels

Some of these changes were also thematic. “We discussed how great horror films, and particularly zombie ones, are a snapshot of the times we live in — just like Night of the Living Dead reflected 1960s themes of racial segregation, or how Dawn of the Dead dealt with consumerism,” Perez-Castro says of the developmental stage of the film. The COVID lockdowns provided that thematic base for Zoopocalypse, as “our animals in the zoo were literally divided in their own enclosures,” the director says.

This is a rather heady concept for a film to translate for an all-ages audience, especially coupled with the horror element. As Perez-Castro says, it all comes back to their visual approach. “We knew that by doing this, we’d immediately communicate a clear comedic tone that would allow us to get away with all sorts of body-horror gags. We wanted our mutant characters to not only lose limbs and body parts like zombies do but also to mix and match them for some visual gags.”

The unlikely inspirations kept coming, as Perez-Castro remembers “literally eating a gummy candy” before realizing that the same texture would be great for the mutants, allowing them a sort of gore without compromising their family-friendly rating. It all comes back to intuiting that balance, as co-director Curtis says: “With a lot of hard work and introspection, you will find your adult self being entertained by childish things and your child self is intrigued by things too old to understand. To me, this is how you make the perfect family film.”

 

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Night of the Zoopocalypse will be released March 7 in the U.S. by Viva Pictures and in Canada by Elevation Pictures. Tickets are available now.

Watch the previously release trailer here and check out a new, exclusive clip below, featuring Kim’s Convenience star Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as the voice of Felix the baboon.