Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation

There's something about fornicating dolls. From Barbie(TM) dolls (the rough sex of Roy T. Wood's "Wheelchair Rebecca") to blow-up dolls (the sacrilegious bondage of Steve Hall's "Scout's Honor") to Lego(TM) men (the anal intercourse and assisted masturbation of Q. Allan Brocka's "Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in the World"), they're all over the newest installment of this legendary series. And then there's "Sloaches(TM) Fun House." They call this one "the most vile piece of clay animation ever molded," and they're right. Betcha didn't know that plasticine figures can defecate and ejaculate and perform hairy cunnilingus.

Among the other highlights: Don Hertzfeldt's "Rejected," a series of stick-figure shorts supposedly designed for the Family Learning Channel (you'll see why they were 86ed); "Angry Kid," a disturbing entry from Aardman animation (the creators of the cuddly Chicken Run); and Shane Acker's cringe-inducing "The Hangnail" (which shows why gnawing on your fingers is a bad idea). Yet the best entry is neither sick nor twisted. Raymond Persi & Matthew Nastuk's "Ghost of Steven Foster" is a crisp, sweetly scary homage to those black-and-white '30s Fleischer Bros. cartoons, with music provided by Tin Pan Alley revivalists the Squirrel Nut Zippers. After that interlude it's back to more wonderfully nauseating, saddening, fucked-up pieces. Enjoy. At the Avon.
-- Mike Miliard