Zoo’s Responsible This?

I’ve seen many, many web shorts that were parodies, fan films, DIY and even reasonably budgeted sci-fi. But rarely do I see one that tries and succeeds in being weirdly disturbing (accidentally disturbing happens all the time). Thus was I pleasantly surprised by Machinima’s latest offering, Zoochosis.

A framing device involves a psychiatrist, about whom we learn next to nothing; all he is in the first episode is a gateway into a bizarre tableaux where a bride envisions that her wedding reception is decaying, full of lunatics, and infested with ejaculating cephalopod aliens, which she proceeds to massacre in creative, slow-motion ways, to off-key Dukes of Hazzard style music. She may be hallucinating; it doesn’t really matter. By the looks of things, she’ll be replaced next week by a different patient with an all-new unusual recollection.

Director Patrick Scott tells the story without any dialogue save an opening and closing voice-over; the result is akin to some of the great and twisted music videos we used to half-remember in fever dreams after seeing once, late at night on MTV. That’s not an insult.

Or maybe I’m as crazy as that bride. The video’s after the jump if you want to decide for yourself.