Little Pig, Little Pig, Come and Let Me In: I review a stellar Chilean horror film with roots in the country’s past

for America magazine:

And so begins a haunting stop-motion animation film, like a fairy tale told by cruel parents, in which the real history of an abusive and politically influential cult is cross-pollinated with “The Three Little Pigs,” “Snow White” and “Little Red Riding Hood.” The sets and characters are made mostly of masking tape; the film began as a series of installations in art galleries. Instead of giving the movie a homey, arts-and-crafts feel, however, the constantly unraveling, crumpling and reforming tape makes the film’s world feel horribly unstable. At any moment a hand might detach from an arm and wriggle across the table; facial features might go blank and then reappear in new configurations. A shattered vase might rise up restored—or a new window might suddenly appear on a wall and let in something terrible from the outside. “The Wolf House” won the Caligari Film Prize at the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival, as well as several other awards, honoring both its innovation and its emotional power.

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