I’m a big fan of animation, as readers of this blog will already know. I’m particularly fond of animated horror, which seems to me to touch a deeper place in the psyche than the generic stuff. It also tends to concentrate less on gore and more on scaring you to the depths of your self. Last year’s Coraline was a great example of this – the best I’ve ever seen of a full-length animated horror film but I thought I’d share a few less well-known ones here.

I here present to you three of my favourite animated shorts. First, a CGI short called Alma, is also newest, with a nice innocent opening, and an ending as dark as it is inevitable. (Thanks to Dee for finding this for me.)

Incidentally, this video may answer some questions for anyone who’s curious as to where I’ve been lately.

Second up is The Cat With Hands, a creepy, stylish little gothic story I first came upon through Neil Gaiman’s blog.

Last, and by far my favourite, is another stylised gothic short, The Sandman. This stop-motion animation I first saw flicking through channels when I was about eleven or twelve, and is the only film to have ever cost me sleep (and quite a lot of it at that). It took me years to track it down, having been desperate to see it again, but I never forgot the last scene, which plays over the closing credits. Many thanks to Paddy, who unwittingly found this for me.