Acorn, out now

An epic, violent fantasy tale about the history of a land that never was, beginning when an ambitious young man steals forbidden knowledge from a sacred plant. 

Shudder’s rotoscope sword and sorcery animation is clearly a labour of love for its writer/directors Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King, but its basic execution makes it hard to warm towards.

The Queen of a swamp (Lucy Lawless) is kidnapped and has to watch her people killed on the instructions of an evil lord (Patton Oswalt). Thus follows a tale of revenge, magic, severed limbs and nudity. Thematically and in look it’s in the same ballpark as 1978’s Ralph Bashki The Lord of the Rings or his 1983 Fire and Ice.

There’s also smatterings of live action Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja and The Sword and the Sorcerer. And herein lies the problem. Modern audiences are used to the scale and sophistication of Game of Thrones and Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. This feature-length animation feels like a throwback to simpler times, while not being as sophisticated or engaging as the material it’s aping.

Verdict: It’s like a new, cheap, animated sword and sorcery VHS has dropped out through a time portal from the 1980s… but not a very good one. 4/10

Nick Joy