Jack is a pickpocket who sees demons everywhere he looks. But those demons are nothing compared the wicked spirit who plagues him every time he closes his eyes, a spirit who controls Jack’s actions with a glowing voodoo doll. The reappearance of a lost love, however, may be enough to convince him to battle that spirit once and for all.
Momentarily NSFW for breasts.
David Vandervoort, who directed Pinched, is a story artist and facial animation designer at Laika, the studio that produced ParaNorman. Pinched was produced by a different animation house, Titmouse, and the talent and chops are clearly reflected in the short.
It’s an interesting take on the notion of inner demons because from the outside, it appears that Jack is mentally ill. But the ending resolution suggests that the demons he saw were, in fact, real, but that he was only held captive by them thanks to his own inner rage and self-loathing. (If he is mentally ill, the ending is rather problematic.) And the way that Pinched portrays the physical action between Jack and the spirit chained in his mental attic is just inspired.
[via Cartoon Brew]
