American Animals
Los Angeles, California | Film Short
Horror, Comedy
They're at the table. You're on the menu. On July 4th, 1913, grotesque animal elites gather at Hambjürger Hall for a feast of human flesh and patriotic excess. A surrealist horror comedy about power, consumption, and the American dinner that never ends.
American Animals
Los Angeles, California | Film Short
Horror, Comedy
1 Campaigns | California, United States
They're at the table. You're on the menu. On July 4th, 1913, grotesque animal elites gather at Hambjürger Hall for a feast of human flesh and patriotic excess. A surrealist horror comedy about power, consumption, and the American dinner that never ends.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
On July 4th, 1913, a menagerie of high-society animal elites gathers at Hambjürger Hall for an opulent Independence Day dinner hosted by Porky Hambjürger, a tycoon of meat, prisons, and aspirational congressional power. The guest list: a libertine lobster critic, a pigeon newspaper mogul, a robber baron walrus, a champagne-soaked peacock socialite, and an ex-Confederate tortoise colonel; each their own satirical symbol of power and privilege.
Concept Designs by Justina Hnatowicz
As silverware clinks and patriotic toasts rise, Hambjürger's speeches curdle into monstrous political tirades about a righteous American Species-Based State. Then the silver lids are lifted. The feast is human flesh, arranged with the care of fine cuisine, garnished, seasoned, and beautiful. Not every guest flinches.
The dinner is only the beginning of the evening's program.
I started writing American Animals because I kept seeing the same dinner. Different table settings, different guests, different excuses for the menu. But the same dinner. The one where the powerful gather, toast themselves, and consume everything beneath them. In a world of resurgent authoritarianism, extreme inequality, and the normalization of dehumanization, I believe independent cinema has a responsibility to name what is happening and confront the audience with it. No matter how disturbing or macabre.
American Animals is not a concept softened for a general audience. It is formally experimental, politically serious, and genuinely strange. The kind of film that has always existed outside the system because the system cannot produce its own critique. Every contribution to this campaign is proof that outsider cinema has a place, that audiences still want art with something to say. Crowdfunding this film is itself the argument.
Porky Hambjürger Mask and Costume Test
Saló meets Zootopia.
American Animals draws from a lineage of surrealist and expressionist filmmakers who understood that the dinner table is the most revealing political space in cinema. Buñuel used it to expose the bourgeoisie consuming its own rituals. Greenaway to literalize power as flesh. Pasolini to make fascist appetites into ideology. Renoir to show a ruling class too refined to notice its own collapse. Lynch to make the familiar suddenly and irreparably wrong. Lanthimos to render social performance deadpan and unbearable.
Each of these filmmakers understood that the dinner party is not a setting. It is an argument. American Animals inherits that tradition and sets it on fire for the Fourth of July.
Hambjürger Hall is a ballroom nightmare. The visual world of American Animals draws from the tradition of 1970s and 80s Eastern European dark fantasy cinema. Fog blue and ash grey. Candlelight in decaying rooms. Grandeur that has gone quietly, irreparably wrong.
Stills from Beauty and the Beast, The Hourglass Sanatorium, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, Street of Crocodiles
Fantasma House is a Los Angeles based midnight movie production company built on community. Without our audience, we are nothing. And our audience has always shown up.
Our films have won awards on the international genre festival circuit and screened around the world. Over $50,000 raised for independent cinema outside the system. That community is the foundation American Animals is being built on.
American Animals is our most ambitious project yet. We cannot bring it to life without a community like you. The script is complete. The team is in place. Our canon is established. All that is missing is you.
Explore our work at fantasmahouse.com or follow us at @FantasmaHouseFilms on Instagram. To learn why this team is uniquely equipped to make American Animals, visit our Team Page.
The script is complete, pre-production is underway, and our team is in place. American Animals is already in motion. What we need now is you.
We are planning a focused three-day shoot in Syracuse, NY in Fall 2026, with distribution set for early 2027. We will position the film for the international genre festival circuit, targeting Fantastic Fest, Sitges, and Beyond Fest alongside midnight programming at Sundance and TIFF.
Seed & Spark requires that we raise at least 80% of our goal to receive any funds. We have 45 days. Every contribution counts and none of it goes anywhere but the screen.
Your contribution goes directly to building Hambjürger Hall. The largest investments are in crew and production design. Custom sculpted animal masks. Period tailored costumes. A three day shoot at an authentic Gilded Age manor in upstate New York. Equipment, travel, and a post-production process that gets this film in front of the audiences it was made for.
How your contribution is used
Other ways to help:
Follow our campaign on Seed & Spark. It is free and every follower helps unlock perks and resources for the production.
Share this campaign. Text it, email it, post it. Not sure what to say? Try this:
Help bring American Animals to life. A surrealist horror comedy about power, consumption, and the American dinner that never ends. Back it on Seed & Spark: seedandspark.com/fund/american-animals
Spread the word on Instagram and tag us at @FantasmaHouseFilms. Every share puts the film in front of someone who needs to see it.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Cast and Crew
Costs $7,000
Every frame of this film depends on the people behind the camera. Fair wages for our crew.
Production Design
Costs $4,000
Six custom animal masks. Period tailored Gilded Age costumes. The complete world of Hambjürger Hall, built from scratch.
Equipment
Costs $2,500
Camera package, lighting, and sound equipment for a three day shoot.
Travel and Location
Costs $2,000
Getting our team to Syracuse, NY and securing an authentic Gilded Age Manor for production.
Post Production
Costs $3,500
Picture lock, color grade, sound design, and an original synthesizer score.
Festivals and Insurance
Costs $1,000
Getting American Animals in front of the audiences it was made for.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Peter J. Hartsock is a Los Angeles-based writer-director and founder of Fantasma House, a midnight movie production company. Under Peter's leadership, Fantasma House has raised over $50,000 for narrative independent film projects through state and private funding, built a pool of film talent and collaborators, and developed a strong community around genre cinema and midnight movie culture. His short films have screened at Boston Underground Film Festival and Sydney Underground Film Festival, where Optic Nerve won the Audience Choice Award, and Brothers Beastly won Best Psychological Horror at the Hollywood Horror Festival. American Animals is his most formally ambitious and politically urgent work to date. By day, he works in development and production on SpongeBob SquarePants at Nickelodeon Animation.
Justina Hnatowicz is a Los Angeles-based CG Environment Artist and Production Designer and a longtime collaborator with Peter and Fantasma House. She currently works at Warner Brothers, where her projects include the Hello Kitty movie and the Dr. Seuss Oh, the Places You'll Go adaptation. Her previous credits include Ultraman: Rising and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Netflix, along with work at Sony Pictures Animation. Her background in furniture, fashion, and architectural design informs her cinematic approach — building spaces that are as emotionally resonant as they are visually striking. On American Animals, she is bringing industry-level world building to an independent budget.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
On July 4th, 1913, a menagerie of high-society animal elites gathers at Hambjürger Hall for an opulent Independence Day dinner hosted by Porky Hambjürger, a tycoon of meat, prisons, and aspirational congressional power. The guest list: a libertine lobster critic, a pigeon newspaper mogul, a robber baron walrus, a champagne-soaked peacock socialite, and an ex-Confederate tortoise colonel; each their own satirical symbol of power and privilege.
Concept Designs by Justina Hnatowicz
As silverware clinks and patriotic toasts rise, Hambjürger's speeches curdle into monstrous political tirades about a righteous American Species-Based State. Then the silver lids are lifted. The feast is human flesh, arranged with the care of fine cuisine, garnished, seasoned, and beautiful. Not every guest flinches.
The dinner is only the beginning of the evening's program.
I started writing American Animals because I kept seeing the same dinner. Different table settings, different guests, different excuses for the menu. But the same dinner. The one where the powerful gather, toast themselves, and consume everything beneath them. In a world of resurgent authoritarianism, extreme inequality, and the normalization of dehumanization, I believe independent cinema has a responsibility to name what is happening and confront the audience with it. No matter how disturbing or macabre.
American Animals is not a concept softened for a general audience. It is formally experimental, politically serious, and genuinely strange. The kind of film that has always existed outside the system because the system cannot produce its own critique. Every contribution to this campaign is proof that outsider cinema has a place, that audiences still want art with something to say. Crowdfunding this film is itself the argument.
Porky Hambjürger Mask and Costume Test
Saló meets Zootopia.
American Animals draws from a lineage of surrealist and expressionist filmmakers who understood that the dinner table is the most revealing political space in cinema. Buñuel used it to expose the bourgeoisie consuming its own rituals. Greenaway to literalize power as flesh. Pasolini to make fascist appetites into ideology. Renoir to show a ruling class too refined to notice its own collapse. Lynch to make the familiar suddenly and irreparably wrong. Lanthimos to render social performance deadpan and unbearable.
Each of these filmmakers understood that the dinner party is not a setting. It is an argument. American Animals inherits that tradition and sets it on fire for the Fourth of July.
Hambjürger Hall is a ballroom nightmare. The visual world of American Animals draws from the tradition of 1970s and 80s Eastern European dark fantasy cinema. Fog blue and ash grey. Candlelight in decaying rooms. Grandeur that has gone quietly, irreparably wrong.
Stills from Beauty and the Beast, The Hourglass Sanatorium, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, Street of Crocodiles
Fantasma House is a Los Angeles based midnight movie production company built on community. Without our audience, we are nothing. And our audience has always shown up.
Our films have won awards on the international genre festival circuit and screened around the world. Over $50,000 raised for independent cinema outside the system. That community is the foundation American Animals is being built on.
American Animals is our most ambitious project yet. We cannot bring it to life without a community like you. The script is complete. The team is in place. Our canon is established. All that is missing is you.
Explore our work at fantasmahouse.com or follow us at @FantasmaHouseFilms on Instagram. To learn why this team is uniquely equipped to make American Animals, visit our Team Page.
The script is complete, pre-production is underway, and our team is in place. American Animals is already in motion. What we need now is you.
We are planning a focused three-day shoot in Syracuse, NY in Fall 2026, with distribution set for early 2027. We will position the film for the international genre festival circuit, targeting Fantastic Fest, Sitges, and Beyond Fest alongside midnight programming at Sundance and TIFF.
Seed & Spark requires that we raise at least 80% of our goal to receive any funds. We have 45 days. Every contribution counts and none of it goes anywhere but the screen.
Your contribution goes directly to building Hambjürger Hall. The largest investments are in crew and production design. Custom sculpted animal masks. Period tailored costumes. A three day shoot at an authentic Gilded Age manor in upstate New York. Equipment, travel, and a post-production process that gets this film in front of the audiences it was made for.
How your contribution is used
Other ways to help:
Follow our campaign on Seed & Spark. It is free and every follower helps unlock perks and resources for the production.
Share this campaign. Text it, email it, post it. Not sure what to say? Try this:
Help bring American Animals to life. A surrealist horror comedy about power, consumption, and the American dinner that never ends. Back it on Seed & Spark: seedandspark.com/fund/american-animals
Spread the word on Instagram and tag us at @FantasmaHouseFilms. Every share puts the film in front of someone who needs to see it.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Cast and Crew
Costs $7,000
Every frame of this film depends on the people behind the camera. Fair wages for our crew.
Production Design
Costs $4,000
Six custom animal masks. Period tailored Gilded Age costumes. The complete world of Hambjürger Hall, built from scratch.
Equipment
Costs $2,500
Camera package, lighting, and sound equipment for a three day shoot.
Travel and Location
Costs $2,000
Getting our team to Syracuse, NY and securing an authentic Gilded Age Manor for production.
Post Production
Costs $3,500
Picture lock, color grade, sound design, and an original synthesizer score.
Festivals and Insurance
Costs $1,000
Getting American Animals in front of the audiences it was made for.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Peter J. Hartsock is a Los Angeles-based writer-director and founder of Fantasma House, a midnight movie production company. Under Peter's leadership, Fantasma House has raised over $50,000 for narrative independent film projects through state and private funding, built a pool of film talent and collaborators, and developed a strong community around genre cinema and midnight movie culture. His short films have screened at Boston Underground Film Festival and Sydney Underground Film Festival, where Optic Nerve won the Audience Choice Award, and Brothers Beastly won Best Psychological Horror at the Hollywood Horror Festival. American Animals is his most formally ambitious and politically urgent work to date. By day, he works in development and production on SpongeBob SquarePants at Nickelodeon Animation.
Justina Hnatowicz is a Los Angeles-based CG Environment Artist and Production Designer and a longtime collaborator with Peter and Fantasma House. She currently works at Warner Brothers, where her projects include the Hello Kitty movie and the Dr. Seuss Oh, the Places You'll Go adaptation. Her previous credits include Ultraman: Rising and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Netflix, along with work at Sony Pictures Animation. Her background in furniture, fashion, and architectural design informs her cinematic approach — building spaces that are as emotionally resonant as they are visually striking. On American Animals, she is bringing industry-level world building to an independent budget.