MartinHafer This is one of the animated shorts from THE ANIMATION SHOW: VOLUME 2. Most of the shorts in this DVD collection are rather poor because very few are funny and the emphasis is much more or art than entertainment in this second installment. For better films overall, see VOLUME 1.Of all the shorts on this film, this is probably my second favorite (after Plympton's hilarious short). While the quality of the stop-motion animation was good, what I really liked about the short was its very sick and twisted sense of humor--something that was abundant in VOLUME 1 but sadly lacking on this DVD.A guy is in an accident. When he wakes up, he's in a hospital that is appears to have been created by Dr. Frankenstein and the Marquis de Sade! As this poor bandaged guy walks around the hospital hallways trying not to be seen, he comes upon horrific experiments and evidence of even more diabolical and useless work by the hospital staff. So, not wanting to be the victim of their next experiment, he spends most of the film trying to escape. It's all very sick and dark, but also rather funny at the same time. You'd really have to see it to understand--but trust me, it is worth seeing.

Polaris_DiB A man falls onto a road, and next thing we know he's in the hospital with bandages over his head... only the hospital is more like a mixture of hell and Lovecraftian horror imagery.This short is featured on the Animation Show 2005, and it is the strongest animation of them all. It is an absolutely stunning display of almost seamless stop-motion animation that is at times hilarious and disturbing. What is of particular interest to the craft of the feature is the way the expressions of the patient are done only with slight changes to his eyes, while expressions of other things range from full-faced to slightly hidden. The animator, Peter Cornwall, seems to have real control over his animation and storytelling.This film speaks towards the fear of being hospitalized... there you are, in a weakened state, with strangers and strange things around, with fear of surgery, drugs, and blood, and sometimes you don't know if you'll ever get to leave. It illustrates this issue with a man who runs, hides, fights, and blows his way through obstacle after obstacle to check himself out, and all the situations and things he comes across... a wheelchair chase, a Lovecraftian monster, sadistic surgeons, pills of head-explody... everything that says fun! A very entertaining time that will leave your mouth agape at the end, struggling to decide what exactly to feel about it... see it if you can.--PolarisDiB

Nightgaunt Maybe it's because I'm such a big fan of both horror and animated films, but in my eyes this was one of the best animated short films I've seen so far. And I've seen a lot of them because I usually don't miss one single episode of the short film festival specials in German tv. It was well animated and synchronized, the grunts sounds of the "Jason" character are hilarious. So are the fighting scenes and the wheelchair chase. That is exactly what I missed in Wallace and Gromit, the good old violence shown with a big smile. I hope it runs again soon, I have to own that for my VCR. I hope the team that made this one brings out another, longer animated film of this quality. I'll go see it, in case it's as funny as this.

Greg75 The qualities of this little animated gem obviously remind me of Aardvark Studio's work : the same efficient use of plasticine for round-shaped and exquisitely expressive characters, the sense of humour and irony within a specific genre, and the constant cinematographic references. Here, it is the horror film that is spoofed, with an inclination toward the "hospital horror" sub-genre. But it is never done to the detriment of the rhythm or of a strong story line : the humour within the fear is always sharp and witty, and the director even winks at Nick Park's specific work with a chase in the hospital hallways that is clearly an hommage to the chase between Gromit and the penguin in The Wrong Trousers. With such impressive skills, I don't really worry about Peter Cornwell's future : it looks bright.