Wallace and Gromit has always worn its filmic influences on its clay-splattered sleeve. Its last feature film, Curse of the Were-Rabbit, spoofed Hammer Horror, while The Wrong Trousers was a picture-perfect pastiche of Hitchcockian thrillers.
It's to the Hitchcock well where co-directors Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham return for upcoming movie Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl – as part of a long-standing creative process for Aardman that arrives at the beginning of any production.
"We always start with that, don't we? We always talk about movies," Park begins in an interview with 12DOVE, with Crossingham dubbing their new feature's overall stylistic approach as a "film noir" one.
Park chimes in with his own suggestion of "gnome noir", a nod to Wallace's new smart gnome invention in Vengeance Most Fowl. After the directors ran through their key foundational texts for Vengeance Most Fowl, it's clear that it's an apt description.
"Rebecca was a good one," Park says in reference to Hitchcock's 1940 Laurence Olivier-starring romance thriller. "Often the way Feathers [McGraw] poses or comes in and out of the light" was a pointed nod towards the way Rebecca's Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson) "moves around like a mannequin and [says] very little" according to the Wallace and Gromit creator.
Park and Crossingham also namechecked a surprising cross-section of works that influenced Vengeance Most Fowl, including 1951 adventure The African Queen, 1960's Village of the Damned, and Cape Fear.
You only have to see the film's synopsis to see those fingerprints all over the film, if not its iconic clay figures.
It reads, "When it emerges that a vengeful figure from the past might be masterminding things, it falls to Gromit to battle sinister forces."
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl will premiere on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Christmas Day at 6:10pm and on Netflix in other regions on January 3, 2025.
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