The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story Shows The Possibilities Of The Animated Universe [Annecy 2023]
"Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" defied expectations and followed a highly successful, Oscar-winning, shock to the animation system of a movie with an ambitious, emotionally charged, visually striking sequel that's bigger, deeper, more complex, and better than its predecessor in several ways.
And during the 2023 edition of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, audiences were blessed with the first short film set in the Spider-Verse, part of a project by Sony Pictures Animation to foster new talent called LENS (Leading and Empowering New Storytellers). The program gives filmmakers from different backgrounds the opportunity to take key leadership positions, using all the assets, tech, and artists from Sony ImageWorks to get as close an experience to directing a big-budget blockbuster film as they can.
For their debut film, "The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story," the inaugural LENS alumni, Khaila Amazan, Clara Chan, Joe Darko, and Jarelle Dampier, each fulfilled a key role in making the short, leading teams of experienced animators as writer, VFX Supervisor, Animation Supervisor, and director, respectively. Each of these filmmakers worked in the industry in various roles for as short of time as a few years or as long as a couple of decades before getting the chance to tell their own story here. The result is a fantastic horror short film about mental health that fulfills the promise of the Spider-Verse, of a multiverse full of opportunities for anyone to wear the mask and tell their story.
But before I go on, arachnophobes beware, there are a lot of spiders within.
A great experiment
The short film follows Miles as he goes home to his parents' place in Brooklyn for a visit. Rio Morales is out, so it's a boys' night as Jefferson has planned a whole evening of watching horror movies with his son — movies he actually rented as physical media. But Miles is not in the mood to watch scary movies, because he has plenty to be scared about already — he is on the verge of having a full-on panic attack.
What follows is an intense psychological thriller as Miles confronts his anxiety — in the shape of a shadowy monster and a swarm of scary spiders. Shameik Moore and Brian Tyree Henry reprise their roles from the films, which helps make this short film feel like an unequivocal part of Miles' story. It also helps that the LENS filmmakers are working with the same assets, the same animation teams, design, and artistry from the feature films.
A promise for the future
Even on a much smaller scale — the short takes place all in one location — there's no distinguishing between "A Spider Within" and "Across the Spider-Verse." What's more, Clara Chan and her VFX team do some experimenting with color palettes that give the film an added thematic throughline.
We've seen animated works explore mental health in recent years, and even "Across the Spider-Verse" deals with Miles' anxiety, but "The Spider Within" stands out by combining that theme with a love of horror and psychological thrillers, delivering a truly spooky short. Bright red hues illuminate Miles' room as a shadowy monster stalks him. Later, his anxiety takes the form of hundreds upon hundreds of spiders crawling all over him like he's Spiders-Man (an actual character from the comics), including one familiar spider crawling out of Miles' mouth.
"The Spider Within" is a fantastic debut for the LENS program, and also a promise that the Spider-Verse can support all kinds of different stories, both on and off the big screen. Besides, this team is clearly talented, and their work on this short should serve as a calling card for the industry to pay attention.