30 Animated Movies That Are Not for Children

The Timekeepers of Eternity is an unusual beast in the world of animation because all its content originated as a live-action TV miniseries.

Adapted from Stephen King’s novella The Langoliers, Tom Holland’s 1995 series of the same name failed to enter the canon, being lost to time in the hit-or-miss way some King properties are (has anyone heard from Maximum Overdrive lately?). This made it ripe for director-animator Aristotelis Maragkos’ pickings.

The Timekeepers of Eternity takes the raw materials of The Langoliers and remixes it, producing from the three-hour show a tight, hour-and-four-minute feature about a passenger plane suddenly losing most of its passengers and crew mid-flight. The remaining few must land the plane and search for answers while time and reality close in on them from all sides.

Maragkos takes the fact that minor antagonist Mr. Toomy (Brosnon Pinchot), who holds the key to the whole conundrum, obsessively tears paper throughout and uses it as his north star when animating, or re-animating, Timekeepers. Each scene appears to have been (or at least gives the appearance of having been) photocopied and reproduced with tears, scrunches and intercut, overlapping sequences. The new details and contrasts added by the animating process gives the film fresh meaning and depth, and it’s one hell of a ride to watch, barrelling towards a terrifying conclusion made all the more real by its physical medium.