Review of This Way Up

This Way Up (2008)
10/10
Not to all tastes, but darkly funny
6 September 2014
Warning: Spoilers
This short was nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short. There will be spoilers ahead:

This is a fairly active short which packs quite a lot, so it bears repeated viewing. From the trip in the hearse from the funeral home, where the natures of the two main characters are set through some quick gags, this short starts out strong and builds from there.

Something very minor starts a chain reaction, leading to the first gut punch the firm of A.T. Shank and Son will take this disturbing day. It will not be the last in a day which would make a sane man change professions.

The most fastidious and determined undertaker in the world and his much less intense son go on a journey which would give Odysseus the screaming meemies! They meet with thickets, hunters, birds, boulders and slopes. They wind up in a Hell which resembles New Orleans at Mardi Gras as filmed by Roger Corman. Shaken but yet unbowed, the two seriously determined undertakers manage to leave the afterlife with their seriously damaged coffin, finally depositing it in the grave. The ending scene is wonderful and shows changes to both father and son. The song over the credits is delightfully bizarre.

This is most definitely worth finding and watching, so long as you don't find the subject matter to disturbing for your taste. Most highly recommended.
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