Ward 13

A man falls onto a road, and next thing we know he's in the hospital with bandages over his head... only the hospital is more like a mixture of hell and Lovecraftian horror imagery.

This short is featured on the Animation Show 2005, and it is the strongest animation of them all. It is an absolutely stunning display of almost seamless stop-motion animation that is at times hilarious and disturbing. What is of particular interest to the craft of the feature is the way the expressions of the patient are done only with slight changes to his eyes, while expressions of other things range from full-faced to slightly hidden. The animator, Peter Cornwall, seems to have real control over his animation and storytelling.

This film speaks towards the fear of being hospitalized... there you are, in a weakened state, with strangers and strange things around, with fear of surgery, drugs, and blood, and sometimes you don't know if you'll ever get to leave. It illustrates this issue with a man who runs, hides, fights, and blows his way through obstacle after obstacle to check himself out, and all the situations and things he comes across... a wheelchair chase, a Lovecraftian monster, sadistic surgeons, pills of head-explody... everything that says fun! A very entertaining time that will leave your mouth agape at the end, struggling to decide what exactly to feel about it... see it if you can.

--PolarisDiB

Be prepared for a wild quarter hour of animated mayhem! This will wear you out as we follow a patient who has just been brought to one strange and evil hospital.

This bizarre animated short features dogs with two heads, boxes of "slime," and a bunch of other things that all resemble someone having their worst nightmare. This is indeed, "the hospital from hell," where Dr. Frankensteins are running amok creating hostile monsters.

If you want more ideas how sick this humor is, just sample the pharmacy that our poor patient finds himself in after he escapes from his first bad encounter with some mad man. In the PX, are, "Pain Enhancement Pills, Essence Of Panda, Jelly Babesw (with 5 percent crack), Ebola virus, human growth hormones (make in China), Niagra laxatives (go with the flow) and rhinoceros dose strength pills. After he takes one of the latter, he sees on the back of vial: "danger - excessive dosage may cause brain to explode")." He stuffs the pills in his pants and takes more as the story evolves.

At every turn is either a demented doctor or patient waiting to do our guy in, but he fights back like Rambo. This has to be seen to be believed! In addition to the high-energy story, high production values, good claymation and artwork at times make this animation short stunning.

Wow! This film is an adrenaline rush of a movie with unrelenting action and thrills...and it's all claymation! This might be the best short film I've ever seen, or at least my own personal favorite (and I've seen a lot of films). It has the energy and fun of a glorious Sam Raimi film (Evil Dead II to be more exact) and sinks its hooks into you with the first shot. The first time I saw this film, I was filled with glee as I couldn't believe what I was watching. Cheers to the director and all who worked on this film (those crazy Australians!). Seriously though, find a way to watch this film and you won't be sorry!! Simply amazing.

The qualities of this little animated gem obviously remind me of Aardvark Studio's work : the same efficient use of plasticine for round-shaped and exquisitely expressive characters, the sense of humour and irony within a specific genre, and the constant cinematographic references. Here, it is the horror film that is spoofed, with an inclination toward the "hospital horror" sub-genre. But it is never done to the detriment of the rhythm or of a strong story line : the humour within the fear is always sharp and witty, and the director even winks at Nick Park's specific work with a chase in the hospital hallways that is clearly an hommage to the chase between Gromit and the penguin in The Wrong Trousers. With such impressive skills, I don't really worry about Peter Cornwell's future : it looks bright.

The titular Ward is either the psycho ward where our hapless hero believes he is beset by an army of sadistic doctors and orderlies, or it's the worst hospital since Roger Rabbit checked into St. Nowhere in Tummy Trouble. It's an impressive effort with some very nice staging of the endless succession of fight sequences, and some flashes of brilliance, but they don't overcome the repetitiveness of the film.

For some reason The Internet Movie Database requires 10 lines of text, and I pride myself on my brevity. I like to keep my comments brief and to the point and I would think that would be a positive thing for the readers of The Internet Movie Database. So, either this will be posted as is, or somebody at The Internet Movie Database will read it and perhaps consider my plea. After all, I am probably not the first reviewer to post too short a comment.