You should be careful here. Take a deep breath. Hold on to a loved one. What you’re about to see will scar you. That’s a promise. It’ll also make you laugh … probably.
Written, directed, animated, and produced by an absolute team of sickos at Anomaly & Unreasonable Studios and featuring a chilling narration from the venerable journeyman Richard E. Grant, O Human Being is a tale of holiday woe.
For nearly five minutes, we bear witness to a kidnapped man’s horrific and repeated calls to his wife whom he suspects, more and more as the days go on, he will never see again. Only his kidnappers truly know his fate, but who are these monsters, this merry band of miscreants?
They’re trees. Christmas trees, to be precise. Douglas firs, probably. The trees have severed our protagonist’s feet and plopped the ensuing stumps in a planter’s pot. The trees own a pet cat, and sometimes it poops on the stumps. It’s just awful, and you’ve not yet heard the worst of it. You see, in this alternate universe, this bizarro holiday hell too perverse for even Tim Burton to imagine … this is normal practice. Humans, not trees, are cut down by trees, not humans, and planted in living rooms far and near.
Despite its vileness, the creators’ chilling commitment to a world so dark manifests some strange light in its commentary on the abject absurdity of what must be the most heralded Christmas tradition. They just dialed up this Jim Gaffigan bit to the max.
Whether or not our hero will escape can only be known by braving a click. In the interest of starting off 2019 right, please allow a word of warning before you do: Don’t eat first.
Oh, and maybe be a little extra ginger when placing your trees on the curb this year, lest the tables one day turn.
Luke is executive producer at Big Breakfast and a watcher of many web videos. Send him yours @LKellyClyne.