Shyness
1996 · 9m · Canada
Directed by Les Drew
Genres: animation, comedy, fantasy
Tones: darkly comic, humorous, whimsical
Dr Frankenstein's newly created monster proves too timid to scare anybody, prompting the doctor and assistant Trevor to devise schemes to coax the creature out of its shyness.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a Frankenstein comedy where the monster has social anxiety—the premise wants to be subversive but lands in well-trodden territory, trading body horror for neuroticism without the edge to make either one sing.
Drew works within the animation-comedy tradition with competent formal control, though the film doesn't quite transcend its inheritance; a tidy execution of a familiar inversion, respectful to genre without interrogating it.
The entire film hinges on the animation choice to render the monster's shyness through body language—those micro-retreats, the averted gaze, the physical smallness despite the creature's size—which transforms a cute-inversion premise into something genuinely affecting about vulnerability.