The 3D film Claw: Parody of a horror film
News . 02 May. 2025
Signed by Lucas Ferrer, Ayoub Chaibi, Marianne Dautheville, Chloé Ferrus, Thomas Petroni, Melissa Saba, Dylan Sayagh, Alizée Valenzuela, and Florian Wagner, Claw draws viewers into a horrific and burlesque frenzy, where slasher movie conventions are turned on their head with audacity, dark humor, and a healthy dose of creativity.
When criticism becomes action
Think you know everything there is to know about horror movies? Claw, a crazy short film made in 2023 by ESMA students, might just surprise you. In this parodic reinterpretation of 80s and 90s slasher films, we follow Andrew, a picky film buff who coldly dismantles the clichés of the genre… until the fictional killer, fed up with his criticism, breaks the fourth wall.
Suddenly confronted with the horror he had been analyzing from his couch, Andrew finds himself thrown into the film itself. Now the hunted, he has no choice but to take on an active role: tracking down the survivors and playing the macabre game he thought he was only watching.
This deliberately absurd starting point is as amusing as it is unsettling, gradually shaking up the comfortable position of the critical viewer, who is suddenly confronted with the realities of creation. “Criticizing is easy… creating is another story!” sums up one of the students who took part in this collective adventure.
Drawing on the iconic codes of the slasher genre and playing with its cult references, Claw unapologetically embraces its parodic nature. It’s a nod to fans of the genre, but clever enough to engage the uninitiated as well.
Selected for the Annecy Festival in 2024
While the directors claim to have enjoyed considerable artistic freedom, they acknowledge that the staging was their biggest challenge. Finding the right tone, faithful to their narrative intentions, required extensive visual research. To inform their approach, they meticulously analyzed a multitude of cult films in order to extract key references and subtly reinterpret them throughout the story.
“We tried to play with the codes and clichés of horror films and subvert them.So it was important for us to incorporate as many references and iconic shots as possible, capable of speaking to and satisfying the widest possible audience. We had to dissect each film to extract the elements that interested us and succeed in sticking to the aesthetic of classic horror films from the 80s and 90s.”
Claw has fun playing with horror movie clichés, some immediately recognizable, others more subtle. The characters themselves are deliberately caricatured. “We’re thinking in particular of the bimbo or the black athlete,” explain the directors, “who are usually the first to die in this kind of film. This time, they meet a different fate!” The soundtrack has also been carefully crafted. Designed as an extension of the visual universe, it adopts a style that is both offbeat and rhythmic, in perfect harmony with the parodic spirit of the film. It accentuates the narrative contrasts and reinforces the breaks in tone, which are the pillars of the project’s identity.
The gamble has paid off: Claw has been officially selected in the “Graduation Films” category at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. This prestigious recognition celebrates the creativity, rigor, and cohesion of an emerging team, while heralding a promising future for each of its members.
