Each night, a group (flock? pride? herd?) of mischievous goblins kidnaps a poor old hermit and drags him off to their creepy mountain lair. That’s really about the extent of Seamus Walsh and Mark Caballero’s moody black and white animated silent short “The Old Man and the Goblins.”
Jeez, you’d think the guy would learn to lock the doors and close the windows after a while.
Set to a scratchy vintage silent movie-like soundtrack and with traditional title cards interspersed throughout, this film could easily pass as one of Tim Burton’s early works; a sort of trial run for “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Sadly, these goblins either aren’t doing much of anything, or the dark and muddy visuals obscure their activities, undermining what looked to be a painstaking combination of puppet work and claymation.
It’s possible that a brighter print would have helped this nonetheless interesting, slightly creepy short along…but not as much as simply giving “The Old Man and the Goblins” something to do.
