ALWAYS set Option Strict On at the project level. If you specifically need late binding then set it Off in the specific files where that's required. Even then, use partial classes to keep the code in those files to an absolute minimum.

The issue appears to be that you have Option Infer Off. This line is the root of the issue:
vb.net Code:
  1. Dim animatedImage = My.Resources.splash
Whoever wrote that line was almost certainly assuming that the type of the animatedImage variable would be inferred from the type of the My.Resources.splash property, which requires Option Infer On. If it's On then the variable will have the same type as the property, which is presumably Image or Bitmap. With Option Infer Off, no type inference can occur, so you would need to either specify the type of the variable explicitly or else have it default to type Object. The latter will happen if you have Option Strict Off and don't specify the type but Option Strict On REQUIRES that you specify the type explicitly.

Basically, you need to decide whether you're going to set Option Infer On or Off. You don't need it On in most cases so you can turn it Off, but then you need to specify the type of every variable explicitly. I suggest that you set Option Infer On and use type inference where it's appropriate.