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A human cyborg searches for the secret of fertility in a monster infested underground dystopia.

What’s the weirdest movie you have ever seen? Cinematic classicists could well opt for Luis Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou. Cooler cine-dudes might cite David Lynch’s Eraserhead. Or how about Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! for leaving the audience scratching their collective heads? Well, forget all of those – they are but the most mundane 1970s public information films in comparison to Takahide Hori’s bizarre bravura stop-motion one-man show, Junk Head.

It took Hori seven years, doing most of the animation single-handed, as well writing, editing, handling the lighting and cinematography, doing most of the voices, and even sharing a credit for the electronic score. Oh yes, he sculpted the puppets as well.

So, was it worth it?

Emphatically yes. Story-wise it might be just an episodic series of quests and challenges – I’m not sure the occasional references to God and morality amount to very much – but they are in turn funny, quirky and genuinely unsettling in a world that none of us have seen before.

Hori’s subterranean labyrinth is a seemingly endless dusty concrete bunker connected by stairs and gangways reminiscent of the engravings of M.C. Escher, but with added architectural brutalism. It is populated by mutant, malformed humans preyed upon by an array of nightmarish monsters who resemble the distorted fleshy forms you find in the most indigestible paintings of Francis Bacon. While there is a distinct anime sensibility, older sci-fi cultists will be reminded of the things we used to see in the pages of Métal Hurlant fifty years ago. Although, a less pretentious summation might be to describe Junk Head as ‘Samurai Ninja Clangers on Acid’.

Whether Hori is consciously referencing any of these sources I have no idea. He’s young and bursting with ideas, and perhaps it all just flows from a brilliant and uninhibited imagination.

Verdict: At a hundred minutes, Junk Head slightly outstays its welcome, but don’t let that put you off. If you want to see something truly original, which will lodge itself in your imagination for the rest of your life and quite possibly re-configure your synapses, then don’t wait to see this on TV, hunt out a screening and buckle in for the ride. 8/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com