Wallace and Gromit have aged like a fine cheese. Aardman’s stop-motion duo starred in multiple shorts throughout the ‘90s, but in recent years, they’ve taken a backseat while the studio focuses on other projects like Shaun the Sheep. Still, the duo has had no shortage of adventures: we’ve seen the two face off against mechanical dogs, try their hand at space travel, and solve a blood-curdling murder mystery. Their second foray, “The Wrong Trousers,” even worked as a tense thriller.
The key was in the short’s silent baddie, one heralded by Esquire as “cinema’s greatest villain.” In “The Wrong Trousers,” Wallace and Gromit take in a penguin named Feathers McGraw as a lodger, only to realize he’s a wanted murderer. Wallace almost meets the same fate at his flippers, but Gromit subdues the penguin and contains him in a zoo.
But in Netflix’s upcoming feature film Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, a local crime spree leads to Wallace being framed by a revenge-seeking Feathers. Check out the trailer below:
This is Wallace and Gromit’s first feature film since 2005’s underrated Wallace & Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. But while that was a classic horror-tinged creature feature, Vengeance Most Fowl is a pure revenge thriller for families not ready for Oldboy and John Wick. Judging by Aardman’s track record, however, it should have the action sequences to match those live-action affairs.
Anyone who Feathers McGraw spooked as a child is now fully grown, but you never forget the beady eyes of a murderer. This trailer has Feathers’ dead-eyed look on full display, like when he’s seen playing an organ before he spins around in his chair like a Bond villain.
Wallace & Gromit may be synonymous with cheese, crackers, and comforting British accents, but in their own way, they’re some of the best animated thrillers ever made. Now, a new generation can experience Feathers’ wrath in a full-length encounter. It’s been over 30 years since we’ve seen him, but he’s still as terrifying as a bowling-pin-shaped penguin can possibly be.
