DreadClub: Vampire's Verdict

Hooroo Jackson

The first AI-animated feature film, and the first AI anime feature — 87 minutes, made by one person for $405. Betty Gray, a college sophomore steeped in gothic romance, falls for Duchamps De Ve, the leader of a banned occult society, and then has to defend him when a rival from his past accuses him of being a vampire and the town puts the charge on trial. Hooroo Jackson built it between February and July 2024, using AI for every layer — imagery, animation, performances, sound, music, editing — and treating the model as a writing partner rather than a shot generator. The finished film is assembled from more than 17,000 generated images. The economics are the part that's hard to argue with: $405 and six months against the several hundred thousand dollars and multi-person crews that every comparable project has needed since. It premiered July 3 and reached Prime Video on July 26, making it the first AI feature to land a major streaming license, with a Blu-ray following in August. Reviews were genuinely mixed — critics credited Jackson's direction while noting the film talks far more than it moves, and that a vampire trial contains remarkably few vampires. That's a fair verdict and beside the historical point: a feature-length animated film that one person generated end to end, distributed on a major platform, in the first half of 2024.

Made with AI-generated imagery, animation, performances, music, and sound