Mixing uneasy stop-motion animation and corrosive live-action with the subconsciously tormenting "Alphabet Song" sung by
Robert Chadwick,
David Lynch's surreal nightmare on celluloid portrays an endlessly relentless and repulsive transformation of the alphabet. Visceral visions, disturbing fears, and abstract phobias embody a sleeping girl's haunting night-time dream sequences, as the twenty-six letters of the English language become symbols of decay and the punitive tools of a parasitic force. Each letter gives birth to another set of deleterious mutations until a climactic ending drenched in bright-red blood sends chills down the spine. Is there an escape from the ABCs of dread?
—Nick Riganas