Land of the Heads – review

Directors: Claude Barras & Cédric Louis

Released: 2009

Contains spoilers

This is a short animation and it is rather cute, though with its sung introduction I must admit that the Nightmare Before Christmas did spring to mind.

Emile in his coffin

The musical narrator of our little tale is the moon, glowing above the couple who lived in the tower by the sea. Their island is shaped like a skull – quite fittingly. On the island lived the vampire Emile and his wife. His wife despises wrinkles and so cut of her own head and now seeks a new head to rest upon her neck. With this in mind she raps upon Emile’s coffin, disturbing him from his Concertina playing.

the vampire wife

She hands him a knife and he has to cross over to the nearby island and the walled town there on. He cuts off the head of an unwilling donor, takes it back and hands it to his wife, but it is an ill fit. As the animation progresses she hands him bigger and bigger weapons with which to do the deed; an axe and then a chainsaw. With these he brings back more and more heads, but will he find one that fits and will the crow stop pecking the dome of his head?

a head donor

This was, as I said, rather cute. Bookended with verses by the moon the rest of the film is without narration, not that you need it. A nice, if macabre, way to spend 6 minutes, though the actual vampiric element is little more than coffin sleeping and fangs. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.