Short Film: Ghost Burger (Great Britain, 2013)

 

Here at A Wasted Life, we love claymation. And claymation plus gore, even better. Way back in Aug 2009, as our "Short Film of the Month" we presented a bloody masterpiece entitled Bloody Date by the Japanese Takena Nagao. Among Nagao's many other claymation gore shorts is another (we thought) unsung gore-mation classic, Chainsaw Maid (2007 / short film). And that short, in a convoluted way, has led us to our "Short Film of the Month" for this month, September 2016, Lee Hardcastle's Ghost Burger.

See, a few weeks ago we noticed Chainsaw Made II (2010 / short film) [and, actually its sequel Chainsaw Babe 3D (2012 / censored film)] floating around the web, both of which use characters from Nagao's short, but are made by Westerner named Lee Hardcastle. (Dunno how much one filmmaker knows of the other, but as they say in German, "That's not our beer.") Personally, we don't find CM II as good as CM I, but it did lead us to searching out other shorts by Hardcastle, and we eventually reached Ghost Burger, perhaps one of Hardcastle's most ambitious projects to date, complete with rounded-out characterization, plot development, and lots of claymation and gore and sick humor. We loved it!

Oddly enough, Ghost Burger is actually a sequel! In 2012, Hardcastle participated in the "independent anthology horror comedy film" The ABCs of Death (trailer), contributing one of the most popular of the 26 shorts, T Is for Toilets (film), about "A little boy [who] is afraid of the bathroom toilet." Ghost Burger — or at least parts of it — are of a sequalistic nature, showing the further "adventures" of the boy, who survived his toilet experience ...

Be what it may, Ghost Burger also stands well on its own as a damn fine piece of goremation. Enjoy!

According to Wiki, "Lee Hardcastle (born January 21, 1985) is a British animator who specialises in stop-motion techniques. He is famous for his handmade independent animations. His work includes original remakes of emblematic 1980s action and horror films as well as parodies of animated series and video clips. His work is known for its violent and gory content." Gory is perhaps an understatement. You can watch more of his shorts at his YouTube page.