This year’s edition of Tribeca Festival features two dark foreign animated works that horror connoisseurs will want to put on their “need to see” lists: Latvian shocker Dog of God and the stunning Spanish short The Quinta’s Ghost.
Dog of God (Latvia, 2025)
Official synopsis: In a medieval town drenched in autumn rain, a sacred relic is stolen. Passion, witchcraft accusations, shamanism and a deal with an otherworldly plant that possesses aphrodisiac superpowers lead to chaos in the accursed hamlet.
Codirectors Lauris Abele and Raitis Abele present a dark gothic vision with their rotoscope animation feature Dog of God. Certain to offend viewers who have religious leanings, the film is filled with hypocritical church leaders, government officials, and ordinary citizens. A witch and a werewolf are major characters, but not necessarily the major villains. Scatalogical, sexual, and violent themes and scenes abound, and though the proceedings are mostly on the ugly side, the visual approach is marvelously hypnotic. If you’re looking for a scathing indictment of religion, you’ll be hard pressed to find one as wild as Dog of God.
The Quinta’s Ghost (Spain, 2025)
Official synopsis: The short film tells the story behind the creation of Francisco de Goya’s Black Paintings from the perspective of the horror genre: In 1819, an exhausted Francisco de Goya retires to La Quinta del Sordo to spend his final days away from public life and focused on his work. Unfortunately, in the deep solitude of that modest country house, the painter falls seriously ill. Closer to death than ever before, Francisco de Goya is visited by the ghosts of his past. Tormented by these visits and with his health rapidly declining, Goya paints the Black Paintings on the walls of his home as a last resort to drive the ghosts out of his life — losing almost everything in the process, including his sanity and nearly his life. Using the tools of the horror genre, the short film attempts to connect the moral realities of the painter’s life with his paintings, using all the folkloric imagery of the time to create a visceral response in the viewer.
Director James A. Castillo’s The Quinta’s Ghost is a gorgeous looking animated work that imagines Francisco de Goya creating his Black Paintings in the solitude of his La Quinta del Sordo (House of the Deaf Man) abode. Goya feared going mad, and this captivating short finds him starting a descent into physical and mental illness. The perspective and dialogue comes from the house itself (voiced by Maribel Verdú) as it comments on the painter’s condition and the change he brings to the home with his dark imaginings. Visually striking and highly imaginative, The Quinta’s Ghost is terrific.
Dog of God and The Quinta’s Ghost screen as part of the 2025 Tribeca Festival, which runs June 4–15 in New York City. For more information, visit https://www.tribecafilm.com/.
