30 Animated Movies That Are Not for Children

British director Mike Mort’s Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires captures the extremes and idiocies of 1980s American action movies, and repackages them as a UK-made, OTT stop-motion animation that has the perspective and sense of irony that only Brits can bring to bear against their gun-toting cousins.

Chuck Steel is the best damn detective the city of LA has ever seen, but there’s only one problem: he’s a renegade maverick who works alone. Willing to go to any extreme to get his man, Chuck leaves entire city blocks in ruin, and his unfortunate partners dead in his wake. But he has to cop on, get with the program and get his act together, because it’s not 1985 anymore - it’s 1986 - and the city’s tramps are being turned into an army of the undead.

Despite basically nobody having heard of this film, the production enjoyed a $20 million budget, and every penny of it can be seen on screen. All the excesses of the classic action movie are there - from high-speed chases, to epic explosions, to guns, guns, and more guns - and the character and set design and animation are flawless. By the time Chuck is taking on giant laser lizards and mutant demon vampire queens with tongues for nipples, you kind of wish it wasn’t, while also hoping for more.