Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation

A collection of animated short films that are too offensive to be placed in the more family-oriented Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation. Where SAMFOA comes once a year, the Sick and Twisted festival is more sporadic, showing up about once every two years or so. In my experience, it has always been shown as a Midnight Movie, and never in a Multiplex (of course).

The line between 'Sick and Twisted' and 'Family' is a little hazy, and sometimes a short will make it into both festivals. This year, Aardman Entertainment's Angry Kid got shown in both. Additionally, I was surprised to see the relatively tame For the Birds, a slick CG animated short done by Disney contractar Pixar, get included in the sick and twisted but not in the family show (maybe bird nudity doesn't play well in Rockford).

If you go to a showings, don't be surprised to see nudity (both male and female), explicit sex, graphic scatalogical humor, gore, nihilism, and worse. One of the classics that got rerun this year was a short called Sloach's Fun House, that shows clamation characters taking very realistic shits and playing with it.

This show plays in Austin, TX at the Alamo Drafthouse downtown every spring. It's usually quite an experience, and by intermission has almost certainly degenerated into raucous alcohol-induced¹ shouting and laughing. The show at the Alamo is fully MC'ed by one of the staff members, and includes audience participation via yelling and games involving a large inflatable penis and an inflatable sex doll. Most years, one gets to see a range of cartoon animation, claymation, and CG work. Favorites include No Neck Joe and Beyond Grampa, and special treats like Radioactive Crotch Man, Angry Kid by Nick Park (of Wallace and Grommit fame), and the magical animation of Don Hertzfeld who brought us the child-beating Billy's Balloon, the gut-wrenching Rejected and the too-true-to-life L'Amour.

1. The Alamo serves beer, unlike most cinemas in the US.