Dragon Hill

Dragon Hill (original name La Colina del Dragón) is a spanish direct-to-video (at least outside of Spain) movie directed by Ángel Izquierdo, who has this as his master piece apparently.

This animated movie is quite, um, "confusing", as the plot suggests the movie is somehere in the middle of some series, even though it is (at least as far as it is known) the "beginning", so to speak. To summarize the plot, there's an isolated place called Dragon Hill that is the home for dragons (duh!). There is a woman called Maude who tries to make them technologically advanced, and a wizard called Septimus who was inprisoned there and that wants to escape; to do so he somehow makes a boy called Kevin, who wants to be a knight, to end up in Dragon Hill too. It gets confusing from here, specially when we learn that dragons were formerly technologically advanced and the only way to get out of Dragon Hill is via a supercomputer. Kevin apparently stays in Dragon Hill, not missing his former life in the castle at all.

There is a sequel, known as El Cubo Mágico. With repetitive animation (often re-used from the former movie), Aesop Amnesia, a truly weird scene that classifies as Mind Screw, Non Sequitur Scene and Deranged Animation and an Ass Pull ending, it is quite well made

Tropes used in Dragon Hill include:
  • Aesop Amnesia: The whole point of the first movie is that its absolutely not safe to keep Septimus on Dragon Hill. Then why the Hell does the sequel concludes that the best thing is to keep him there!?
  • Anvilicious: The second movie with the road signs.
  • Non Sequitur Scene / Disney Acid Sequence: A scene in the second movie portraying Kevin's wish to be a knight. Besides being made entirely on flash (as opposed to the traditional animation style in the rest of the movie), it also features gratious violence (such as Kevin being knocked so hard he looses a teeth) and a FUCKING WALKING WOOD VIKING! That, however, is only one out of at least three!
  • Conspicuous CGI: Fucking everywhere! The second movie, low budget as it was, even has the last frame almost entirely CGI rendered!
  • Dark Is Not Evil: As much as cute as Elphi and his family are, most other dragons are fairly ugly and monstrous, and yet most are decent. Somewhat subverted with a certain wyvern like dragon, which at times proves to be a threat but is chaotically neutral (somewhat)
  • Elemental Powers: The classical elements are well present in both movies: in the first, you need to use one of them to get into Dragon Hill, while on the second the magic cube reacts to either one of them (see Fridge Logic below), creating an extremely Nightmare Retardant Eldritch Abomination. Also Septimus uses what appears to be light beams or something like that.
  • Extreme Omnivore: Tristan, the pig like servant of Septimus.
  • Fake Brit: Probably the voice actors of most characters, which have stereotypical british accents. We don't know exactly where the movie takes place (Dragon Hill is isolated from time and space appearently, but what about the home places of the human characters?), and both in Septimus' home place and Kevin's (both medieval european looking) a british accent would be endlessly more accurate than an american one.
  • Fridge Logic: If the cube reacts when in contact with either one of the elements then why the hell doesn't it react when in contact with the air?
  • Genie in a Bottle: The second movie has one, who uses simple animation used again and again.
  • Mind Screw: Aside from the occasional Non Sequitur Scene, the plot, specially that of the first movie, will make the viewers more confused than anything.
  • Schizo-Tech
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Septimus in the first movie, the Magic Cube in the later.
  • Shout-Out: The animation resembles Universal's last known animated movies (aka Land Before Time and Balto sequels); in fact, at least in Portugal it was distributed by Universal Pictures (don't ask why)
    • The scenes in the credits also resemble those of Brother Bear. Even if this movie came first, of course.
  • The Stinger: The first movie has a series of funny "bloopers" during the credits; see above.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Western looking, but thats about it; there's absolutely no consensus in their physical form. The main dragon characters (Elphi and his family) resemble slightly komodo dragons with an arrow like tail tip, ridiculously small wings and a mammalian face akin to that of Goofy (only tooth and dog-nose less).
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