The Spine of Night

The Spine of Night was directed by Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King, who also wrote the script. While King previously worked as an animator, Gelatt is known for his previous work on live-action films. He made the cult horror film They Remain and wrote the script for the science fiction mystery drama Europa Report. He also wrote the script for 15 episodes of the series Love, Death & Robots.
Ultra-violent, epic fantasy set in a land of magic follows heroes from different eras and cultures battling against a malevolent force.

They wanted to tell an adult story within the fantasy genre. The aesthetic they found appropriate for this was the hand-drawn rotoscope animation, which was preferred in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The drawings were created on the computer, but classically at 12 frames per second, as is usual in rotoscope animation. In this animation technique, artists hand-draw over live-action footage, frame by frame.

Gelatt and King drew inspiration for their work from fantasy and science fiction illustrations by Frank Frazetta and the work of Ralph Bakshi, who made animated films for adults. Especially the 1983 film Fire and Ice was a clear inspiration.