The Infestation of the Nutty Joes
Sometimes you don’t have time to sit down for a full length movie. Sometimes you get tired of tearing through episode after episode of your favorite TV show. Sometimes life is just too busy, and then you have to get your horror in shorter bits and pieces. That’s when it’s best to go with a short film. In my time of scouring the depths of the internet, I’ve found a treasure trove of horrific short films that I’ll be blogging about here. The first of which is a creepy claymation film titled The Infestation of the Nutty Joes.
This is a weird, fun little ride through a city that is plagued by a unique type of zombie. The title is apt in calling them nutty, because rather than eating their victims, they laugh them into — not death, but conversion. Get close enough, and hear a Nutty Joe’s jabbering for long enough, and your own head will explode, only to be replaced by a Nutty Joe. In this way, it is a bit like Pontypool, in that the virus or disease or whatever is spread verbally.
There are plenty of zombie movie tropes in this one, but what I love the most is how it flips around the zombie outbreak source falling from the sky (ala Night of the Comet or Night of the Creeps) and makes that a giant brain. Out of which pops our initial Nutty Joe! Also, it’s not a spoiler to say that this short work has a typical zombie movie non-ending, akin to Demons. (Too be fair though, it seems like a sequel was planned, but never made.)
The Infestation of the Nutty Joes was created by Jan Stephens. He is an animator and illustrator living in England. Check out more of his creepy, weird, and downright nutty works on his website.
Pieces of Darkness 