Cabrini Green
10-28-2004, 03:41 PM
The 26 minute short film The Mascot is an amazing production. Ladislas Starewicz put together painstaking frame-by-frame stop motion animation and combined it with real time to complete his early surreal experience that would influence future filmmakers (Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and David Lynch’s Eraserhead spring to mind). He started his career making animated films in 1909 for the children of the Russian Czar. The plot involves a stuffed toy dog that comes to life to fetch an orange for its owner. A ball put on by the devil detains the journey. Along the way some weird images are tied in including an aggressive monkey, a chicken skeleton, and a serenading pumpkin. The best scene is when a doll double-crosses the devil himself. The Mascot is included on the Vampyr DVD and is a short that should not be lost.