The distinction between modern fantasy and traditional fairy tales, according to The Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy and artist Carson Ellis, often lies in their world-building. While fantasy authors typically construct entire universes from scratch, fairy tales tend to root themselves in the familiar—the woods beyond the village, the mysterious creature on the road. This nuanced understanding is central to their work, particularly their story Wildwood, which has now been adapted into a stop-motion animated film by Laika studios.
Meloy and Ellis, a husband-and-wife creative team, drew inspiration from the folk and fairy tale tropes that formed the bedrock of much modern fantasy. "I feel like when we were first coming up with the story, we were trying to really go for the early stuff — pull from folktale and fairy tale tropes," Meloy told Polygon. "I think there’s so many things in the movie that, because that was really the intent from the outset, was to create a fairy tale. Inevitably, it ends up like fantasy in the context of 2026, but that’s what we were shooting for."
For Meloy, fairy tales are the genesis of fantasy literature. He points to authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, who built their invented worlds by drawing on the language and imagery of older stories. The crucial difference, he suggests, is between crafting an entirely new mythology and revitalizing elements from the collective imagination that already feel ancient. Ellis, whose illustrations defined the visual style of Wildwood on the page, highlights the canonical fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen as examples of stories that have already achieved this enduring status.
In Wildwood, this approach is exemplified by its opening, which draws on the grim folklore of babies being stolen by crows, a motif Meloy traces to Irish mythology. Director Travis Knight aimed to embrace the darker, more unsettling aspects of children's entertainment, a sensibility found in classic films like Watership Down, The Dark Crystal, and The Secret of NIMH. This willingness to explore danger and grief without sanitization has earned Wildwood a rare PG-13 rating.
The animated film is set in and around Portland’s Forest Park, a real temperate rainforest that Ellis found challenging to capture in its entirety due to its dense, overwhelming natural beauty. Meloy describes the park as a place that feels "bigger on the inside." The translation of this environment into animation, meticulously detailed and lush, is a testament to the vision that guided director Travis Knight, who spent nearly 16 years bringing the project to fruition.
The creative tension between the familiar and the unknown has been a recurring theme in Meloy and Ellis’s careers. They have consistently drawn from a wide array of folklore, including Japanese traditions, Slavic pagan stories, and elements of American history. When asked about the possibility of returning to Wildwood, which was originally a trilogy of books in the 2010s, Meloy stated that a sequel would need to stem from genuine passion rather than obligation. "I would have to make sure that it’s something that my heart was in," he said.
Currently, Meloy is focused on new book and film projects. While a stage adaptation of The Decemberists' The Hazards of Love never materialized despite coming close, Meloy continues to support high school theater productions that attempt it. The open-ended future of Wildwood feels fitting, as fairy tales have always evolved through retelling. Meloy and Ellis continue to seek out new sources of inspiration, embodying the spirit of these enduring narratives.
Wildwood is currently playing in theaters.
This story is part of Polygon's latest special issue, Happily Never After: A Week of Adult Fairy Tales, brought to you by The Wolf Among Us Remastered, out on Oct. 29.