When I think of Halloween, I don’t always immediately think of music. While Christmas has its share of iconic carols, Halloween’s contributions to the musical canon are somewhat fewer and farther between. Once you get past “Monster Mash” or the soundtrack of A Nightmare Before Christmas, it gets much more difficult to name specifically Halloween-appropriate tunes. If you’re in the mood for a few of my own suggestions, might I recommend “Ghosts n Stuff” by deadmau5, the soundtrack to Over the Garden Wall, and today’s spooky selection, Adam by Eve: A Live in Animation
Even if you’re not familiar with Eve the musical artist, you may be familiar with some of his work; recently his song “Kaikai Kitan” served as the OP for Jujutsu Kaisen (season 1 part 1). Adam by Eve is a short film that incorporates several Eve songs and depicts the story of two girls, one of whom goes missing. The other feels the loss of her friend and searches for her.
I may never have given this movie a watch if I hadn’t happened to see a trailer for it on Twitter (R.I.P) one day; so far this stands as one of the only times where Netflix managed to even approach adequately advertising one of its exclusives. I’m glad that my social media use tendencies finally paid off!
The plot, if it can really be called that, is relatively simple and, in my opinion, not really the point. The appeal of the film is more in its audiovisual creativity – it combines live-action and animation throughout – and the mood it cultivates with its often strange, uncomfortable, and creepy imagery. There’s not necessarily a ton of narrative depth to extrapolate meaning from, but I do think that the piece does a great job of cultivating an eerie mood. It’s all about the vibes.
While the bulk of the film is made up of what could be described as loosely-connected music videos, there are some common visual threads throughout. The most obvious is the appearance of a one-eyed man who begins to show up in the background and becomes a more threatening and obvious presence as the story unfolds. This character is “Hitotsume” and is apparently a common character in some previous Eve music videos and Kara no Kioku, a manga written by Eve. I didn’t know about this specifically when I watched this film, so I feel like it’s more of an Easter egg for people who already know that background (not knowing about it didn’t impact my own viewing experience, for what it’s worth).
Adam by Eve is likely to be one of the more unique entries on this list. It’s not a straightforward plot-focused anime – some might say it’s not entirely an anime to begin with, despite containing animated segments. It’s more a mood piece rather than a piece of media with a concrete structure. But I think it fits in well with the feelings that this season brings. And bonus – it helps to expand the soundtrack for this time of year.