Large Fierce Mammal

The title of today’s Dark Sentiment is taken from that toe tappin’ Queen classic we all know and love, and most particularly its use in one of my favourite commercials of all time. Behold:

This brings me around to two animated short films that I present today for your viewing pleasure, both dealing with the time honoured profession that concerns itself with disposing of the dead while exercising appropriate ceremony and decorum. Each looks at the job of the “funeral home director” or the “undertaker” from different perspectives,  with its own unique flavours of blackest humour.

The first item on our agenda is This Way Up, being the tale of a father and son team of funeral directors who will, quite literally, go to Hell and back to see their client to her proper resting place.

Second, but by no means second string, is the bizarre and grotesquely rendered film, The Backwater Gospel, in which a small town tramp with a bad singing voice and equally bad judgement becomes the scapegoat for much bigger issues. In brief:

As long as anyone can remember, the coming of The Undertaker has meant the coming of death. Until one day the grim promise fails and tension builds as the God fearing townsfolk of Backwater wait for someone to die.

Pour yourself a drink and enjoy today’s presentation.