NR, 9 min.
Director: Bo Mathorn
Voices: Lucien Dodge,
Zebulon Whatley, Phillip Sacramento, Laura Post
I’m sure I’ve expressed this
before, but what a wonderful gift the Internet has been for the short film. YouTube
and various other web outlets have opened up the world of short films to the
eager consuming public. Thousands of short films that would surely never have been
seen by more than a handful of people are now available for the all-consuming
public thanks to online streaming. And so many wonderful cinematic gifts can
now be passed on.
I’m not sure if it is
correct to categorize “The Backwater Gospel” as a gift, but it is a wonderfully
delicious dark little animated wonder. It imagines a little western backwater
town (called of all things “Backwater”) that is frequently visited by the
Undertaker, a spirit of Death who appears whenever one of the town’s citizens
goes to meet the Ferryman. A crow heralds his presence and when he shows his
face he has his handy measuring tape to begin the next part of Death’s victims
for them.
The animation is as wooden
and worn as the oak planks that make up the Undertaker's trade. Backwater is a town that
lives in fear under his shadow. One citizen is a comedian musician who sings of the Undertaker’s
actions as a joke. Another is a preacher who feeds of the towns’ peoples’ fear,
using the Undertaker as a reason for them to fear the Lord. Neither serves the
town’s best interest, and so the Undertaker waits. The comedian assumes he
waits for someone else. The Preacher assumes he’s come for the comedian. Both
are wrong.
The twist is easy enough to
see coming, but the set up is so well conceived. The towns’ people are such
sheep. The mood and atmosphere are so dark and so sweetly evil. It’s a harsh
cartoon that sees how easy it is to sway the public away from their own good and
into something bad. It isn’t uplifting, but it is very good.
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