This Twisted Agency Video Imagines If Trees Chopped and Decorated Humans for Christmas

If you think your holiday season is stressful, just be glad you haven’t been kidnapped by a family of trees, covered in decorations and put on display in their living room—with your feet chopped off so you can’t escape.

That fate befalls a bunch of suburban dudes in “O Human Being,” an outrageously dark-humored (and largely NSFW) animated holiday offering from Anomaly London and Unreasonable Studios.

Richard E. Grant—a character actor whom advertising nerds might remember from starring in 1989’s bizarre British film How to Get Ahead in Advertising—relates the story as “Peter,” one of the unfortunate captives, who sums up his situation thusly: “The whole situation is entirely fucked! I plead for my life. I scream and curse from the depths of my soul. My captors just gather around me and sing songs. It’s the craziest head-fuck I have ever known!”

Anomaly’s freaky films, which serve as the agency’s holiday greetings, have become a December tradition. Last year, Patrick Stewart had a devilishly grand time reading “Dear Satan,” the story of Lucifer’s yuletide season. In 2016, Phoebe Waller-Bridge soared, voicing “12 days of Christmas—a Tale of Avian Misery.”

This time around, highlights (in a depraved sense) include jolly images of blood staining the snowy sidewalks as trees drag their victims around the neighborhood, and Peter’s increasingly profane and riotous ravings as his condition deteriorates.

And wood you check out that wacky festive programming playing on the TV? WOOD you?!

Ultimately, our hero escapes (no thanks to the tree family’s literally craptastic cat), and the ordeal ends with a wickedly revised choral rendition of “O Tannenbaum.”

Let’s all sing along!

O Human Being, O Human Being,
How lovely are thy fingers,
O Human Being O Human Being,
How lovely is thy flesh,
Your cheeks so fresh in summer time,
Go sort of grey in wintertime,
O Human Being O Human Being,
How lovely are thy stump legs

CREDITS:

Narrated by: Richard E. Grant
Written, directed, animated & produced by Anomaly & Unreasonable Studios
Written by: Craig Ainsley, Ben Robinson, Mike Whiteside
Directed by: Ben White, Craig Ainsley, Ben Robinson, Mike Whiteside
Animated by: Ben White, João Pereira, Guillaume Le Roux, Emrah Onal, Chris Hilton, Kirstin Smith
Produced by: Soraya Phipps
Animation Producer: Dani Sierra
Illustrated by: Sharm Murugiah, Debut Art
Personal Assistant to Mr Rodger Federer: Oli Beale
Head of Body Disposal: Nicky Russell
Typography by: Kerry Roper
Composition by: Ashley Bates, Adelphoi
Sound Design by: Mike Bovill, 750mph