Enstarz Sat Down With The Directors Of The Netflix Original 'The House' And Learned How The Stop-Motion Masterpiece Came To Be
Netflix Original The House has started streaming and if you have not gotten a chance to check out this gem of stop-motion animation you are doing yourself a disservice. Macabre, adorable, and skin crawling, this gift of animated artwork is a need to watch for anyone looking for something off the beaten path.
Enstarz had a chance to sit down with the brilliant creative minds behind The House to find out how such an innovative endeavor came to be and what was the inspiration behind these less than traditional animated films.
Story One: Directed by EmmaDe Swaef and Marc James Roels
Enstarz: What was your inspiration for your story in The House?
Emma: When we got together with Niki and Paloma to decide on a theme, we decided to each come up with a story that all took place in this house and we all went home to kind of think about what each of us will do and we thought it would be interesting to start with the construction of the house. Like, Whats the origin story of the house?
James went on to talk about how the common practice of buying a home can be a terrifying feat without family in mind.
James: We have seen people who have gone crazy over what is essentially a pile of bricks, and we knew you can be happy in a little crappy place if you are surrounded by the right people- that's kind of the core of the story for us.
Enstarz: The story takes place in a house where the family can't leave? Did anything with the lockdowns during COVID influence the story?
Emma: The story- it was written before the lockdown. Maybe we just felt it was in the air.
That just leaves the antagonist of the story,
Enstarz: The Architect character felt like a menacing Willy Wonka type. Where did you come up with him?
James: To have this figure coming up from a bygone era, sort of, from a previous century popping up in there causing havoc like kind of this weird kind of clownesque figure, with a Faustian pact; in previous versions of the script he had dialogues and monologues and a whole lot to say and in the end we found it better if we keep him kind of mysterious, kind of this presence hovering about- we kept him hovering about just to keep things unsettled.
This lead us to Story Two where we talked to director Niki Lindroth.
Enstarz: I'm very curious, how did the project come to be? Was it a collaborative effort between all the directors or were you each approached individually to take part in it?
Niki: The three of us were approached by Nexus to possibly do this kind of collaboration. And they invited us over to London and we had like this very open and very nice discussion on, [sic] we all have our differences, but we do share this common style and an interest for certain kinds of stories.-- I really sort of adore both Marc and Emma, and Paloma's work since before, so it was really an honor. So, we got to know each other and we started our collaboration there and then, I guess, to kind of develop what we could do together and end up with the theme of this house and what's happening in it in different times and [sic] that we all would direct a chapter to ourselves but still have connecting points.
Enstarz: How would you pitch your segment to someone who's never seen this?
Niki: (laughs) I always find it hard to do the sort of elevator pitch for this story, but I would say that it is kind of that it's a claustrophobic chamber drama with this sort of contemporary like [sic] real estate market as the backdrop. In my story, this main character that we call The Developer, bought a very old and worn down house known from the previous chapter but it is our time and hes beginning to renovate it and make it some sort of luxury home, and by that, make a lot of money and climbing the ladder to wealth and success. But in the beginning of the story it doesn't go very well, to begin with, he is quite pressured from the bank, [sic] so he needs to just finish this renovation himself, and on top of that it also turns out that the house is completely invaded by insects. So, he has to exterminate, like, thousands of generations of insects as well as turning it into some kind of Kylie Jenner mansion for the nuevo riche people.-- Once this big house viewing is made, it is only one, very strange, older couple that turns out to be interested in purchase. And they look uncomfortably familiar with the actual insects that have been exterminated. And they behave very strangely and ask very strange questions about, like, the materials used in the walls, and they sort of mention that they have lived there before [sic] and it's sort of the journey into the mouth of madness for our main character.
Enstarz: How long is the animation process on just that half-hour of your short?
Niki: Working with this big super professional crew has been amazing in so my ways and time-wise, it was hard to say because our shoots were kind of intertwined a bit. But I think all of this was about two years, or something, it's been very quick, and I think it's been very quick even for the kind of, you know, upscale animation project.
Enstarz: What was the inspiration for the story?
Niki: It was, in some way, kind of inspired by David Lynch and his work. There's one of the scenes where The Developer meets the old couple for the first time, inspired by a sort of eerie scene in Lost Highway [sic] I was always inspired by old apartment thrillers like The Tenant and Repulsion and where you kind of lose yourself within an isolated space.
The final tale in The House was made by Paloma Baeza. here's what she had to say about her lighter approach to the subject matter.
Enstarz: What I found interesting about your segment is that it is the least dark. What that your concord decision to kind of mellow out after all of the craziness of the first two stories?
Paloma: Well, not exactly, I think it has something to do with we each have crossovers, which is why we come together like this, and we have big differences tonally, I think my natural tone doesn't really lie in dark and scary, it lies in sort of a bit dark but it's warm and humorous. It's warmer and I think that's where I'm a bit more comfortable.That is why the project works so well is each one has a slightly different perspective because they each have different filmmakers. Broadly speaking, we were each telling the story we wanted to tell.
With these three very different directing styles, story, tonallity, and approach, there is something for everyone's pallete in The House. Streaming now on Netflix, this beautifully odd anthology is a must watch.
Read the full review right here.
