Goblin High
2023 · 6m · USA
Directed by Isaac Roberts
Genres: animation, comedy, coming-of-age
Tones: humorous, tender, whimsical
Bright-green animated goblins muddle through the existential lull after high school graduation — a brooding dad, a moody musician son, and a graduate dreading the split from her best friend.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Goblins doing the suburban-malaise thing is the kind of dumb-but-smart pivot I respect — it sidesteps cute-fantasy clichés by treating monsters as bored teenagers. Refreshingly small in scope.
Roberts grafts stylized goblin-green character design onto deeply ordinary teenage ennui — Adventure Time / Over the Garden Wall / Hertzfeldt lineage. The whimsy is doing the heavy lifting for substance that may not quite be there.
Bright-green animated goblin character design grafted onto post-graduation teenage ennui — at six minutes, the form-as-distancing-device is well-calibrated to the subject. Three threads (brooding dad, moody musician son, graduate burying a time capsule) is structurally ambitious for the runtime.
Reviews
The film's embrace of everyday life mixed with stylistic character design deliver a wonderfully imaginative display of word-building.