Movie Sleuth writers, Dana Culling and Michelle Kisner were invited to attend this year's festival at The Magic Bag in Ferndale, Michigan.
When Craig
“Spike” Decker and Mike Gribble branched off from their original Festival of Animation to create the Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation
in 1990, it was with the intention of providing a vehicle for the depraved and
disgusting side of adult animated short films. The delightfully subversive, the
hilariously sordid, and the downright obscene have always had a place in the
festival – in fact, as the evolution of television animation (and, later, web
animation) would bring with its renaissance an appreciation for darker subject
matter and more outlandish character designs in scenarios prone to grotesque
violence or explicit sexual content, the kind of shorts featured by Spike and
Mike have become almost commonplace.
John
Kricfalusi’s Ren and Stimpy, Mike
Judge’s Beavis and Butt Head, and
even Kenn Navarro’s Happy Tree Friends
all basically found their audiences through Spike and Mike; the director’s
roster from so many of the early films showcased by one or the other of the
pair’s animation festivals features, among others, such talents as J.G. Quintel
(Regular Show), John R. Dilworth (Courage the Cowardly Dog), Eric Fogel (Celebrity Deathmatch) and even Andrew
Stanton and Pete Docter, both directors of popular Pixar films.
For the 2015
edition, Spike Decker brings back some old favorites – Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and Powerpuff Girls creator Craig McCracken’s “No Neck Joe” character
makes two appearances, and there are a few offerings from Breehn Burns’s Lone
Sausage production company – and introduces some fantastic new favorites.
Highlights of
this year’s Sick and Twisted Festival
include:
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-The
strangely almost Hubleyesque E1even Roses,
a 2008 film by Canadian filmmaker Pedram Goshtasbpour which uses both CGI and
traditional two-dimensional animation to tell the beautifully twisted tale of a
painful love triangle in harshly contrasted black-and-white with splashes of
red.
-An unusual music video in which Batman fronts an animated death metal
band covering the Metalocalypse band
Dethklok's "Face Fisted" in similar style to the Brendon Small /
Tommy Blacha series.
-Mike
Geiger’s hysterically off-putting Cuddle
Sticks, during which a pair of young siblings are “treated” to some special
lollipops made for them by their questionably hygienic mother.
-Lone
Sausage’s Beyond Grandpa, a series of
bizarre vignettes showcasing the darker side of your genial geriatric
patriarch.
-The marvelously
depraved 24 Days of Elves, starring
“Weenis the Elf” and his debauched trickster pals as they wreak nasty havoc all
over the holiday season.
-A Max
Fleischer-style inkwell nightmare set to the tune of “Ghost of Stephen Foster” by
swingers Squirrel Nut Zippers.
-Ercan
Bozdogan’s bowel-busting Captain Awesome,
which proves there is sometimes very human weakness to even the most
awesome of superheroes.
-The
Australian Metro Trains’ cheerful PSA,
Dumb Ways to Die, an original rail-safety spot which has, since 2012,
spawned memes and parodies of epic proportion.
-A pair of
Alan Becker shorts in which the battle is pitted between Animator versus Animation – and the winner is not as obvious as it
may first appear.
And, believe
it or not, there’s more – some irreverent and just plain silly, some of it
horrifying, and some of it simply too baffling to begin summarizing. All of it,
in one way or another, pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable in animated
comedy – even now, when such boundaries have already been stretched to
near-nonexistence.
Since its
inception, the Sick and Twisted Festival
of Animation has been a trove of viscerally shocking and psychologically deranged
content – and it has made a name for itself welcoming the absurd and the
ludicrous among its ranks. Many of the shorts featured here may not count for
‘high art’, but their revolutionary spirit and sheer hilarity make this
festival a unique must-see for those strong enough of stomach for it.
Forget about
morals and messages – this festival is about letting go of such airs in favor
of the juvenile within us all that just wants to laugh at fart jokes and dumb,
dirty cartoons. It carries this distinction with, if not pride, a flamboyantly
obvious delight.
The festival plays again (today) December 30th and Saturday, January 2nd.
Score
