Line #43 WesternAnimation/SpriteFright


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/5662bc2079ee7ffd491b65c29a360ac9_4.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Spiteful Sprites Delight!]]
3	->"Not all mushrooms are [[{{Pun}} fun guys]]."
4	->-- {{Tagline}}
5
6
7	''Sprite Fright'' is a 2021 animated [[SlasherMovie slasher]] HorrorComedy and produced as the thirteenth ''Creator/BlenderFoundation'' Open Movie.
8
9	A group of rowdy, city-slicking teens set camp in a secluded part of the woods for their biology project. There, they encounter mushroom-like, gnome beings called Sprites who are the peaceful and cheery protectors of the woods. However, as night falls, the campers discover how cruel nature can be.
10
11	Due to the movie's short runtime of around ten minutes, spoilers will be left unmarked.
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13	The short film can be watched on [=YouTube=] in full [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cMxraX_5RE here]].
14	----
15	!!''Sprite Fright'' provides examples of:
16	* TheEighties: Because of the cast's fashion choices, music, and the Sprites being a parody of smurfs, the film could indicate to take place somewhere in the [='80s=].
17	* AdorableEvilMinions: The little Sprites appear to be innocent at first, but their looks are deceiving.
18	* AffablyEvil: The Sprites are friendly and cute towards anyone who treats nature well... and will make no hesitation at ''killing'' those who harm the environment, as well as anyone who tries to aid those who do so.
19	* AffectionateNickname: Victoria calls Rex, her boyfriend, "Sugar Buns" who in turn calls her equally mushy nicknames like "Sweet Cakes" and "Love Muffin".
20	* AllThereInTheManual: Although Ellie does look vaguely Asian in the film, her half-Asian ethnicity is only confirmed in the film's production notes on the Blender Foundation website.
21	* AlphaBitch: Victoria comes off throughout the whole short as being dismissive of Ellie and generally self-centered.
22	* AllWebbedUp: Victoria ends up wrapped in webs like a mummy as poetic justice for the spider she attempted to kill earlier in the short.
23	* AndroclesLion: The bird Ellie helps at the beginning comes back to save her from the Elder Sprite at the last moment.
24	* TheBadGuysWin: The Sprites succeed at killing Ellie's classmates, and while Ellie does escape, they were already planning to let her go before she tried to help. The Sprites that were seemingly killed by Ellie are seen happily moving along again at the end of the film. All in all, the Sprites got what they wanted without losing anything, it just took a bit of extra effort.
25	* BatterUp: Rex uses his cricket bat against the Sprites.
26	* BeehiveHairdo: Victoria has a multicolored one she constantly maintains with hairspray and is incredibly distraught when the spiders eat it and make her bald.
27	* BigDamnHeroes: Just when Ellie is about to be killed by the chief Sprite just for trying to save her classmates who mistreated nature, the bird that Ellie saved in the opening saves her by pooping on the chief Sprite's eyes.
28	* BigEater: Phil is always seen munching away on something in every scene he's in and loaded his entire pack with salty snacks so he never runs out. His first thought upon seeing the Sprites was wondering what they would taste like.
29	* BirdPoopGag: The bird that Ellie saves, in the beginning, returns the favor by pooping in the Elder Sprite's eyes when he tries to kill her, blinding him and allowing Ellie to get away.
30	* BitchInSheepsClothing: The sprites seem cute at first, but are really cruel and murderous creatures.
31	* ChekhovsGunman: The bird that Ellie saves in the opening returns the favor by pooping on the eyes of the chief Sprite.
32	* CombatPragmatist: The Sprites are not above setting up traps and [[UseTheirOwnWeaponAgainstThem using the teenagers' own weapons and tools against them]].
33	* CorruptedCharacterCopy: The Sprites are one to ComicBook/TheSmurfs. They are tiny, friendly and colorful creatures who enjoy nature and are led by a white-bearded elder dressed in red. However, the similarities stop there as they're not above trying to ''kill'' people who destroy nature, and even try to kill an innocent nature-loving girl just for trying to free her obnoxious classmates who mistreated the environment.
34	* CuteIsEvil: The Sprites appear to be adorable Smurf-like gnomes and are initially friendly. But during the night, they abduct the teens except Ellie to execute them for harming nature. When Ellie tries to save her classmates, the Sprites [[DisproportionateRetribution consider her fair game too]].
35	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The various ways the characters die all reflect [[KarmicDeath how they treated the environment around them]].
36	** [[BigEater Phil]] is KilledOffscreen and his body is doused in oil and set alight similar to how he accidentally killed some butterflies by lighting the grill.
37	** [[AlphaBitch Victoria]], Rex's girlfriend who was shown almost killing a spider with hairspray, is killed after being blinded by her hairspray, getting stuck in a web and being AllWebbedUp, smothering her to death.
38	** [[JerkJock Rex]], who crushed a snail in the short's establishing shot, is killed shortly after when he's shot with snails and experiences OrificeInvasion.
39	** Jay, who urinated on some of the Sprites, gets cornered in a hollow tree that the Sprites fill with urine and drown him in.
40	* CurbStompCushion: It's clear staying in the forest and trying to fight back means certain death. Still, Victoria, Rex and Ellie are able to fend off the Sprites with their various means, although only Ellie's last her long enough to actually escape.
41	* DiesWideOpen: Phil was KilledOffscreen, and this indicates his death to Ellie and the audience.
42	* DisguisedHorrorStory: If you thought this was just a lighthearted SliceOfLife comedy story featuring a group of careless jocks who get away with mistreating nature ForTheLulz, you would be wrong.
43	* DisproportionateRetribution: The Sprites tried to kill [[NatureLover Ellie]] just for trying to free her classmates.
44	* DissonantSerenity: At the end, the sprites are still marching and singing their happy song while they're bearing the many salt-inflicted injuries from Ellie's assault. Also, the Elder cheerfully said, "Let's burn the bodies and have some peppermint tea!".
45	* DontCelebrateJustYet: After Ellie escapes the Sprites, including the Elder, she quickly escapes their forest area by running across the tree log bridge... which proceeds to break and fall, threatening to plunge her into the chasm. Fortunately, Ellie uses her waist pouch as a makeshift grappling hook on a tree branch to swing to the other side.
46	* EdibleAmmunition: Thrown pretzels are surprisingly effective weapons against the sprites, thanks to their weakness to salt.
47	* EdibleBludgeon: A Salty Meat Stick slices right through the Sprites like a [[Franchise/StarWars lightsaber]].
48	* ExactWords: Elder Sprite lets the campers use the area where the Sprites reside as camping grounds since "A friend of the forest is a friend of the Sprites". Since all the campers except [[NatureLover Ellie]] don't care about and willy-nilly destroy nature, the Sprites found a reason to kill them and spare Ellie (until she tried to rescue her classmates).
49	* TheFairFolk: The Sprites appear to be cutesy, nature-loving gnome-like beings, but are all too willing to use lethal force on humans who harm nature.
50	* FinalGirl: Ellie is the only survivor of the Sprites, manages to kill many of them and escape.
51	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
52	** When Ellie's four classmates walk across the tree log, it noticeably creaks and sinks a bit. Sure enough, when Ellie walks across it to escape the Sprites' forest, it gives way and almost sends her falling to her death.
53	** Phil accidentally spilling salt that dissolves a Sprite's mushroom cap turns out to be the key to finding the [[SaltSolution Sprites' weakness]].
54	** Ellie noticing one of the Sprites drag a bloodied shoe into their home hints to us about the Sprites' true nature.
55	* FriendToAllLivingThings: The Sprites are shown to be exceptionally kind to wildlife, with the wildlife being friendly towards them in return. This also means that the spiders and snails are also ''very'' willing to help the Sprites ''kill'' Victoria and Rex.
56	* GreenAesop: Don't treat nature like your own personal rubbish dump, it will come back to haunt you.
57	** [[SubvertedTrope However]], you are part of nature yourself, so you have the right to self-defense by turning on your ancient instincts... Right, Ellie?
58	* JerkJock: Before the Sprites are shown to be evil, Rex is shown being dismissive and overall cruel towards Ellie and nature as a whole; stepping on a snail and wanting to trap one of the Sprites.
59	* KarmicDeath: Every member of the teen group save Ellie is killed in either a similar way they mistreated nature, or by the very type of animal they mistreated. Phil, who burned butterflies on the barbecue, is doused in lighter fluid by the same Sprite he accidentally sprinkled salt on, and immolated. Victoria, who sprayed a spider with insecticide, is killed by being webbed up and suffocated by spiders. Rex, who callously crushed a snail, is killed by having a [[OrificeInvasion snail enter his ear]] and choked by a large one shot into his mouth. Jay, who urinated on the Sprites, is killed by getting trapped in a hole and urinated upon by the Sprites until he drowns.
60	* KarmicJackpot: Ellie on the other hand has her good deeds repay her, as the Yellow Wagtail Ellie rescued from the six pack ring at the beginning of the short gives back later on, blinding Elder Sprite via BirdPoopGag just before he could land a killing blow on Ellie with her own pocket knife.
61	* KilledOffscreen: Phil and an unknown trespasser's deaths aren't shown onscreen.
62	* LeftTheBackgroundMusicOn: The [='80s=] inspired music when the teenagers are setting up camp and during the chase sequence was provided by Jay's boombox.
63	* {{Lilliputians}}: The Sprites are adorable, little mushroom gnomes who are only three apples high. However, their adorableness goes out the window once night falls for the campers.
64	* MadeOfPlasticine: The Sprites are ''very'' easily dismembered by [[SaltSolution salted foods]]. Potato chips and pretzels carve into them like huge shurikens, pretzel sticks impale them through, and swinging a salted meat stick cuts them in half like nobody's business. This contrasts their reactions to other weapons, such as Rex's bat sending one flying into the distance (but still fully intact), or Victoria's hairspray merely knocking them away.
65	* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: Several of the Sprites who survived Ellie are happily dancing and singing back to their home, while sporting ''very'' grievous injuries. This includes one [[HumanPincushion completely impaled by loads of pretzel sticks]] and one who's [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe reduced to a head and arms]], dragging itself across the ground.
66	* MickeyMousing: The scene of Rex trying to kill a Sprite that's popping in and out of a log like a whack-a-mole game is timed so his swings are synced to the background music.
67	* MookHorrorShow: Once Ellie discovers the Sprites' weakness to salt, she turns the tables on the Sprites, massacring them by the numbers with nothing but salted snacks. Most of the Sprites quickly go from sporting a malicious grin to an OhCrap expression as they're maimed and killed.
68	* MushroomMan: The Sprites are small green-skinned humanoids with mushroom caps on their heads. They're described as if "a gnome shagged a mushroom" by Jay, whose bucket hat and lanky body structure make him resemble a mushroom himself.
69	* MuggingTheMonster: Rex, Victoria, Phil, and Jay go out into the Sprites' clearing to catch one in a jar. When Ellie finds the four, they're all BoundAndGagged, with the Sprites preparing to immolate Phil's ''already-dead body''.
70	-->'''Rex''': ''We were just gonna catch one! But they're'' psycho!
71	* NamelessNarrative: All of the characters except Phil (the fat guy) go nameless throughout the story with their names only being found in behind-the-scenes documentation.
72	* NatureIsNotNice: What the Sprites and most of the critters represent. They are small, and can accidentally be overlooked, but mistreat them and they ''will'' destroy you.
73	* NatureLover: Ellie. She's interested in only cataloging what she finds and isn't destructive to nature around her. This is possibly the reason she survives.
74	* NiceGirl: Ellie is a friendly person overall and the only one nice towards nature. She even avoids trying to kill the Sprites until they refuse to back down, after which she uses lethal force via salted snacks to defend herself.
75	* OnlyTheLeadsGetAHappyEnding: Ellie's classmates are all killed by the Sprites. However, Ellie survived thanks to her love of nature, [[SaltSolution salty weapons to kill the sprites]], the bird saving her from being killed by the chief sprite, and Ellie using her waist pouch to escape the falling tree log bridge. By destroying the tree log bridge between her home and the home of the sprites, no future passengers would enter the Sprites' home and get killed by them. Also, [[SlidingScaleOfUndeadRegeneration the sprites that were seemingly killed were shown to still be alive]] but without certain limbs implying that [[HealingFactor they can grow them back]].
76	* PetTheDog: The Sprites leave Ellie alone instead of capturing and killing her because [[NatureLover she never mistreated nature]]. That is until [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished she tried to free her classmates]].
77	* ReclaimedByNature: The closing credits show all of the campers' belongings becoming one with the forest, with Sprites and animals making their homes there.
78	* SaltSolution: Salt dissolves the Sprites. This becomes important later on as it allows Ellie to fight back against the Sprites.
79	* ScaryTeeth: The Sprites at nighttime have serrated teeth when attempting to murder the campers.
80	* SubvertedKidsShow: The animation style is overall very cutesy and the Sprites look like ''ComicBook/TheSmurfs'', but the characters are a lot more foul-mouthed than in a typical cartoon, and all of the teenage characters save for Ellie, the nature-loving girl die horrible deaths. A lot of commenters lampshade this as a result.
81	-->'''[=YouTube=] commenter:''' "Oh, what a cool nature movie!"\
82	"Oh, it’s about saving the environment."\
83	"Oh, it’s about fungus creatures."\
84	"Oh, it’s about '''murder'''."
85	-->'''Another [=YouTube=] commenter:''' "I love how this story turned from respecting nature to mushroom smurfs committing war crimes within one minute."
86	* SuperDrowningSkills: Jay exclaims he can't swim when the Sprites are filling up the hole he's hiding in with [[UrineTrouble piss]]. He drowns the moment the liquid reaches over his head.
87	* ThisIsForEmphasisBitch: "You picked the wrong camping spot, bitches."
88	* TokenGoodTeammate: Ellie. The fact that she's the only NiceGirl among her {{Jerkass}} classmates is why the Sprites don't immediately catch her in an inescapable death trap unlike the others, allowing her the chance to escape.
89	* TookALevelInBadass: In one night in a fairy-tale forest, Ellie turns from a sweet and timid schoolgirl into a desperate and unstoppable survivalist...
90	* TraumaticHaircut:
91	** After getting stuck in the web, Victoria ends up having her hair eaten by spiders to her horror. It doesn't last too long, as she's quickly killed off after that.
92	** Ellie is forced to chop off her hair to free herself when it got caught by the sprites.
93	* TwoGirlsToATeam: Ellie and Victoria are the only girls out of the campers.
94	* UrineTrouble: Jay pisses on a dormant Sprite early on, knocking the ladybug on top off. The Sprites kill him by peeing on him while he's trapped in a tree log, drowning him in their urine.
95	* UseTheirOwnWeaponAgainstThem: The Sprites use the humans' tools against them if given the chance. They turn Victoria's hairspray on her to blind her and lead her into a spider web and steal Ellie's Swiss army knife, which the Elder Sprite later attempts to kill her with.
96	* VerbThis: Rex shouts "Sprite this!" at one point when batting them away with his cricket bat.
97	* WeaksauceWeakness: The Sprites are [[SaltSolution vulnerable to salt]] and quickly dissolve in contact with it. This makes several kinds of junk food lethal on contact with them, [[MadeOfPlasticine easily melting their bodies apart]].
98	* WhamShot: After the friendly-looking Sprites introduce themselves, Ellie notices two of them trying to drag away a discarded trainer with bloodstains on it, indicating that they're not as friendly as they seem...
99	* YellowEyesOfSneakiness: The Sprites' normally white eyes glow ominously yellow in the dark to reveal their true nature as murderous little gremlins.

Context WesternAnimation / SpriteFright