IT Came From Beyond the Drain
2024 · 10m · Canada
Directed by Adam Ciolfi
Genres: animation, comedy, horror
Tones: darkly comic, surreal, whimsical
A man and his dog must defend themselves from a creature that erupts from beneath their kitchen sink. A hand-drawn horror-comedy from Adam Ciolfi.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A hand-drawn creature feature that treats the kitchen sink as a genuine portal to cosmic dread—the absurdist premise lands because Ciolfi refuses to wink at the camera or apologize for the concept, letting horror and comedy occupy the same frame without diluting either.
The film's restraint in animation style and its economy of narrative—a man, a dog, a sink—recalls the structuralist tradition of limiting variables to clarify formal choices, though the tonal synthesis of horror-comedy places it slightly outside the canonical lineage Margot typically champions.
The decision to animate this in hand-drawn style rather than live-action or CG unlocks a specific texture—the linework gives the creature design weight while the domestic setting reads as genuinely unsettling rather than campy, a technical choice that makes the whole film work.
Reviews
It's very satisfying that, after 2 years in the making; the finished film seems to have hit the mark. It turned out to be a very rewarding experience and one that opened the film up to a much wider audience.