How two filmmakers remade The Shining with killer chickens

One way to make one of the most spine-chilling films even more scary? Throw in a coopful of killer chickens. Filmmakers and VFX artists Nick DenBoer and Davy Force are no strangers to what they call ‘hijacking’ intellectual property, then remixing it with a touch of VFX magic. They dub it ‘anti-mation’. To take on Stanley Kubrick’s magnum opus, it was no easy feat to outdo their previous work – the likes of which has appeared on CONAN. Beaks are superimposed over Jack Torrance, the twins have been blinged out and Danny’s finger friend is one straight-talking hardass. Little did they know that this fun project would be the talk of Toronto International Film Festival. Here, DenBoer muses on what Kubrick would think of this reinterpretation and what the hell was going through his mind when he dreamt up The Chickening.

What was the catalyst for using The Shining as a backdrop to tell your story?

Nick DenBoer: My co-director Davy Force and I were looking at lists of films (namely the Warner Bros. archive) and The Shining popped out. It’s such a classic film and the architecture along with Kubrick’s compositions really lend themselves well to match-moving and our brand of visual effects.

How did you conceive of this idea?

Nick DenBoer: We are both VFX artists with a passion for remixing. We’ve been talking about doing a proper film remix for years and finally had the chance this spring to jam on it. We wanted to remix/hijack a film and give it a new narrative by using all kinds of VFX techniques and by re-editing it. The web is so ripe with this sort of content, we just wanted to take it way further and pump out the craziest augmented film possible. We originally made The Chickening as a proof of concept to pitch to Warner Bros. It’s just an amazing accident that it made it into TIFF & subsequently over a dozen other festivals.

What do you think Kubrick would make of this?

Nick DenBoer: We think Kubrick would have liked this thing. It’s intense, it’s powerful, it’s iconic, it’s weird as hell, or maybe he would hate it and say we ruined his art. Who knows? Either way, it is an honour to have The Chickening associated with The Shining.

What kind of response have you gotten from people who have seen it already?

Nick DenBoer: Everyone seems to love it, and we’re talking about some of the biggest horror and genre film nerds in the universe! It’s kind of overwhelming. Tim League of Fantastic Fest & the Alamo Drafthouse saw it and emailed us saying he wanted to cancel all the films in FF and just play The Chickening over and over. Colin Geddes, programmer for Midnight Madness at TIFF has been a huge champion of the piece. I actually owe him my first born child and possibly the second. It’s incredible to get this kind of feedback. We never intended this thing be shown in public let alone in the most prestigious of film festivals.

Who made the “Come Play With Us Danny” song?

Nick DenBoer: I composed that track.  I was trying to make a longer version for before TIFF but I only got half way finished.  Here is a beta version mp3 if anyone wants a work in progress.

How did you get into all this?

Nick DenBoer: I started doing weird remix videos on YouTube and people started hiring me to do stuff. One day I got a call from Ken Block who asked us to do a DCSHOES commercial; it was Davy & my first big collaboration. I also got tapped by Team COCO a few years back where I worked as a bit creator and wrote, animated, and produced dozens of videos for CONAN on TBS. One job always seems to lead to the next and I’ve been fortunate in carving out a career in remixing stuff which has worked up to The Chickening.

What will be your next project?

Nick DenBoer: We are currently developing a TV series in the same sort of style as The Chickening using a different classic property and we are also jamming on some similar concepts for a feature.  We are really excited about adapting this style to a longer format.  With a proper budget we can make something 5x better than The Chickening – that will really make people’s brains hurt.