brainwavez.org | MEOW: The Zombie Kitten Apocalypse

MEOW: The Zombie Kitten Apocalypse
A brainwavez.org Short-Film Review

This animated music short is too good to save for Halloween (although, in our minds, every day is Halloween at brainwavez.org) so I thought I'd post about it to start 2010 with some fun - may it be a reminder that the horrors of 2009 are now in the past and may it be a sign that 2010 will be filled with zombies and kittens! (Preferably at a safe distance if the two are one and the same.)

MEOW

MEOW is a collaboration between two artists from the UK, Cyriak Harris, who composed the music and did the animations, and Sarah Brown, who illustrated all the cute and gory goodness.

"The zombie kitten apocalypse", as the creators describe it, begins in a cemetary (isn't that always fittingly the case?), where a toxic spill has caused kittens to rise from their graves, with a craving for kitten flesh and brains. Backed by an industrial electronic beat, they march to the city in search of fresh meat. The result is quite disturbing (and that is an understatement).

The animation and illustrations are both fantastic. The jagged movements of the zombie horde are timed to suit the edgy music perfectly, and the use of light (notably glowing eyes, but also the moon and streetlights) and shadows adds to the eerie atmosphere. The juxtaposition of the mounting horror with depictions of traditionally "happy" icons - flowers and wriggling maggots in the cemetary, a happy moonlit starry night with ominous clouds hovering on the horizon, a beautiful stained glass window at the cemetary church, bows in the kitten's hair... whether they're alive or dead - serves as a constant reminder that this is a tale of horror and madness and makes you feel quite uneasy and unomfortable.

I have watched MEOW quite a few times, partly out of fascination and partly to get screenshots, and instead of my tolerance increasing with repeated viewings I became more and more sickened. In less than three minutes the short manages to pack more emotional punch into the story than most horror movies do in the average hour and a half that you are trapped in your cinema seat. You feel for the cute kittens as you watch them succumb to the darkness, one by one, their souls rising to kitten Heaven as their corpses become macabrely animated, disjointedly joining the beat of the zombie advance. The repeat viewings also gave me the chance to catch sight of the many little details and intricacies that have been woven deftly into the illustrations, such as paw signs for the traffic-light colours and streetlight lamps that are shaped in the outline of a kitten head (in one of the few non-macabre depictions in the short).

Just don't let those cute touches distract you - the zombie kittens are coming, and the humans might be next!

Can you recommend any other short films to kick off 2010? Let us know in the comments.

Posted: 6 January 2010
Tags: horror, zombies

YouTube: MEOW
[ Streaming Flash Video (Low Res: 12 MB, 640x360; High-Res: 22.2 MB, 854x480) ]

brainwavez.org Opinion

Key Facts: MEOW: The Zombie Kitten Apocalypse

Running Time: 02:46

Genres: Animation, Horror, Music, Science Fiction

Official Site: MEOW

Credits:
    Animation: Cyriak Harris
    Illustration: Sarah Brown
    Music: Cyriak Harris

Cyriak Harris: Official Site

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