Animation is experiencing a golden period. Anyone who believes otherwise has not seen “Primal”, “Blue-Eyed Samurai”, “Scavengers Reign” or “Arcane”. And to this list, we must add one more: “A Family Curses”, entitled in English “Curses! “. Short episodes, around 20-25 minutes, which immerse you in an aesthetic that seems to come from the mind of Tim Schafer, creator of “Monkey Island” or “Grim Fandango”.
At home, we watch it as a family and we all love it: it has the sense of adventure that the last Indiana Jones would want, it has moments of sweet horror that fit perfectly with the Halloween season and has some silly, talking jokes that would fit right in with the Munsters family. This series, which already has two seasons to watch on Apple TV+, is one of the best produced during the decade.
What is “A Family Curse”
“A Family Curse” Comes From Some of Dreamworks’ Best Animators. Yes, the same ones from Shrek. This is already a good starting point. Producing is John Krasinski, which those who don’t know him for his work on ‘The Office’ may do so as he is the creator of ‘A Quiet Place’ https://www.applesfera.com/”A Quiet Place” , a franchise that already offers video games And the management is Jim Cooper (“DreamWorks Dragons”) and Jeff Dixon (“Operation: Hurricane”).
The plot is a mix of comedy and scary adventure. It all begins, as the name suggests, when an ancient family curse turns the family patriarch, Alex Vanderhouven, to stone. He depends on his two children, Pandora and Russ, and his wife Sky, return the artifacts stolen by your ancestors to their rightful homes to lift the said curse. And although they succeed, in part, in the second season, they will have to repair the damage caused by their ancestors, including the consequences for Alex. And Briarstone Manor is a lot of fun.
With a handful of emerging voice actors, among the proper names this series stands out Leo Riley (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) as supervisor or Alex’s own role, assumed by Reid Scott —the good boyfriend of ‘Venom’, also known for his role as Dan Egan in the series ‘Veep’—. Anyway, I can’t tell you more, I can only recommend that you take advantage of an Apple promotion to see it.
And the series was born by chance. Krasinski mentioned how difficult it was to produce during the pandemic, as much of the work was done remotely. And although the tone is light and comedy almost always ends up dominating the tone – quarrels between brothers are constant –, Krasinski cites films like ‘Poltergeist’ and ‘The Goonies’ as big inspirations.
And the fact is that the united family stays united, and in that sense, turning a family into an elite team always works. In a way, this evokes legendary series like “La banda del patio”, but this time under such powerful animation that it could stand out among the new “Spiderman” films. Plus, this second season ups the ante and improves in everything: monsters, crazy puzzles, dungeons that look like video games traditional role-playing, dimensional travel… nothing is missing.
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