Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #107620 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-04-13
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Format: NTSC
• Original language: English
• Running time: 7 minutes

Amazon.com
Dead Guy and Dead Gal try to get by in a Dead world. Beautiful 3D animation.

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Customer Reviews

My heart (no longer) beats for you
What do the dead do on their days off? (And it's their day off from doing WHAT?)

Well, I have to say that question has never occurred to me -- and probably not to many people aside from Tim Burton. But it's the center of "Day Off The Dead," a hilariously offbeat short film with a very polished animation style, some very clever jokes, and a cute little dead romance in the middle of it all.

The setting is the world of the dead -- everybody is a skeleton, punks paint Valentine-like graffiti, pets frolic in graveyards, and even the dead have to worry about pre-date blemishes. The narrative basically centers on two dead people -- a young male skeleton, Dead Guy, takes a trip to St. Peter's Clinic for the Clinically Dead. At the same time, a female one, Dead Girl (with hair that looks like tiny cinnamon buns) is reading a tabloid when she sees Elvis on the corner of Blue Suede and Shoes.

These bony soulmates first meet during a rainstorm, only to have the wind come between them. And when he tries to attract her attention while playing with an equally dead dog, the Dead Guy inadvertantly offends Dead Girl, much to his horror. Can he somehow make it up to her, or will his bad luck keep him apart from the skeleton of his dreams?

You can tell that "Day Off The Dead" was made basically for the pure fun of it, by the visual effects guys behind "Shrek," "James and the Giant Peach," and "Spy Kids." And it's basically a series of interrelated little vignettes, none of them more than a minute long -- but all basically centered on the budding love between Dead Guy and Dead Girl.

It's also incredibly funny. Some of the humor is pretty slapsticky (in any movie with skeletons, they are bound to lose body parts at some point), but mostly the humor is wickedly funny, involving such things as flowers, cinder blocks and power sanders. One of the funniest moments is when Dead Girl encounters a dead flasher, but since he is lacking genitalia to expose, he's forced to tape a paper drawing to his pelvis.

And despite the complete lack of spoken dialogue, there's still an element of verbal humor in the vignette titles ("French Sex Comedy - Without the Sex or the French").

Reportedly several animators contributed to this little movie, and it looks impressive -- sort of a blend of stop-motion and computer animation. The skeletons look like papier-mache models that have digitized and allowed to move independently. They dance (solo and together), they paint, they smooch, they play fetch, and they struggle with the usual problems of falling in love.

It may be only seven minutes long, but "Day Off The Dead" is a charming little animated venture into the ordinary lives of the dead. Very cute, polished and darkly funny.

Day Off the Dead Review
Day Off the Dead is a collection of CGI animated clips and NOT a linear narrative. This is also NOT a stop-motion animation, contrary to how it was listed...maybe they'll change it after this review. Caveat emptor.