The alternative Hallowe'en countdown; or, maybe lay off the drugs for this one

Story time, fact-fans. Back in the late 1980s, before Channel 4 was just the 'Great British Bake Off' channel, my mum and I watched this by chance one afternoon. We had no clue what we were letting ourselves in for. I didn't remember much about it, other than it was called 'Alice', so for years I was constantly wondering if I'd ever be able to find it again (you try finding 'weird Alice in Wonderland animation' in the days before the interwebz!) Fast forward 20+ years and again, by chance, I was sorting through some DVDs at work when I saw the cover and immediately knew that this was the Alice I had been searching for!

This is the second of the Czech offerings; clearly they excel at creepy animation. A curious mix of live footage and stop-animation, this is 90 minutes of pure eccentricity. Oh, and a word to those of you who have phobias of taxidermy or porcelain dolls....do NOT watch this. Trust me, you're gonna have a bad time.

Made by Jan Švankmajer, this surreal retelling of 'Alice in Wonderland' is just one long fever dream involving marionettes,  animal skeletons, specimen jars, and a March Hare that looks like it's escaped from 'Five Nights At Freddy's'. Interestingly, the customary MC of Wonderland, the Cheshire cat, is absent from this version. Possibly because a disembodied, grinning cat would be the least weird thing about this whole thing.

Whilst there's a few words spoken in Czech, it doesn't detract from the story if you don't bother with the subtitles. Most of the time, Alice is saying 'said the white rabbit' and the other times you can kinda work out the gist of what's being said. Incidentally, "what the fuck?" in Czechoslovakian is "co to sakra?" Feel free to use if often during your viewing.