This Christmas, the BBC are giving us a cracker: the first new Wallace and Gromit for 16 years. It has all the trimmings: Nick Park as co-director; a starring role for the Pontcysyllte aqueduct; cheese. But before its 25 December TV debut, the new film premieres at the American Film Institute festival in Los Angeles – presumably to enable an Oscar run next year.
But perhaps there’s another reason. For a Halloween premiere feels yet more fitting than a festive one. Wallace and Gromit, lest we forget, has always been surprisingly frightening. The Wrong Trousers was a classic noir, all oblique angles and chiaroscuro. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit featured brainwashing and a vampiric bunny as big as a bus. In A Matter of Loaf and Death, Wallace was romanced by a serial killer. In A Close Shave, he was nearly minced.
