Junk Head is a stop-motion sci-fi masterpiece 7 years in the making

I’ve been waiting to watch The Junk Head for over a decade.

That may sound like an exaggeration, but I’m being serious: Takahide Hori, the director and lead animator, first teased the dark stop-motion sci-fi horror film all the way back in 2013 when he released the first 30 minutes of the movie online as a stand-alone short. Although the film’s feature length version was finished in 2017 and has received a lot of praise on festival circuits. The Junk Head wasn’t released in Japanese theaters until 2021 — with virtually no word on an American release afterward.

You can only imagine my shock when I found out that The Junk HeadAmazon had the film available for rental without any kind of announcement. I’m happy to report back that The Junk Head was worth the wait, and that it would make for an excellent double feature with another similar stop-motion passion project: Phil Tippett’s Mad God.

The Junk HeadThe story takes place in the distant future, when humanity devised ways to extend their lives indefinitely at the expense of the ability for reproduction. When a mysterious virus wipes out much of the remaining human population, a cyborg explorer volunteers to study the unique reproductive system of the Marigans — artificial humans created centuries ago who live in the bowels of the planet — as part of a last-ditch effort to save humanity. Unfortunately, the cyborg’s craft is damaged mid-descent, injuring the pilot and destroying their body — save for their head. With no memory of their prior life, the cyborg must navigate the wondrous and terrifying underworld in search of not only their own identity, but an answer to the question of humanity’s imminent future.

Hori, an artist and self-taught film maker, spent seven years sculpting each of the character’s faces by hand. Hori also worked professionally as a theme parks interior decorator, and carpenter. The Junk Head It took 140,000 shots to create the animation. Standout sequences include The Junk Head being taken in by a village of haggard engineers who are governed by a group of tall, muscular female elders clad in red latex suits and platform boots, as well as the film’s climactic fight between a trio of comical monster hunters and a hulking Giger-like monstrosity. Both scenes stand as testaments to Hori’s studious attention to detail and his exacting creative vision.

Given the quality of the film’s animation, one would be surprised to learn that the decision to produce Junk Head as a stop-motion film was motivated more in part by Hori’s relative inexperience and gung-ho enthusiasm for filmmaking than it was by deliberate intention. “Everything started from my misunderstanding,” Hori said in an interview with Little White Lies. “I’m not really great at computers or graphics, and you have to learn about software, you have to learn about computers. I thought my brain doesn’t have that kind of capacity. It’s easy to make a stop-motion animated film. All you need to do is create everything, move it and take the shot. How wrong was I?” The filmmaker has cited Ridley Scott’s Alien and Clive Barker’s HellraiserInspirations for major themes The Junk Head, as well as Tsutomu Nihei’s manga Blame.

Image: Yamiken/Gaga

The influence of the latter is particularly evident in the film’s premise and set design, emulating the dark post-human industrial aesthetic and megalithic structures Nihei is synonymous with. That’s not to say The Junk HeadThere is a lot of doom in the movie. However, there are also some giggling and mischievous moments that balance out its macabre and gory action. Overall, it’s an entertaining and disturbing experience. One of my favorite sequences is when Junk Head, now equipped with a makeshift body that impairs his ability to speak, is set on an errand in order to procure some “mashrooms” for a celebratory dinner. He meets a trickster, who pretends to help Junk Head explore the strange world of the underground. However, he is actually stealing the mashrooms and leaving Junk Head behind. It’s made even more hilarious by how the camera repeatedly smash cuts to close-ups of the thief’s exaggerated scheming smirk.

It’s this tonal quality that Hori’s film shares with Phil Tippett’s 30-years-in-the-making opus Mad GodThe Boschian epic is a nightmare about an assassin who finds himself in a war of symbols between hell’s strata. They embark on a dangerous descent through fantastical landscapes filled with comical creatures and horrific monsters. Both films evidence a stubborn love for the fastidious craftsmanship that goes into filmmaking, emphasizing stories less concerned about the capital-P “Plot” of sequential storytelling and more focused on world-building that engrosses their audiences, immersing them in every intricate detail and character throughout their respective durations.

Hori says The Junk HeadThe film is the first in a planned trilogy. In the future, the movie will incorporate 3D-printed assets and computer visuals. After finally having the opportunity to sit down and watch his first film, I’m eagerly looking forward to what other stories he has to show in this world. My experience with The Junk Head has reminded me of anything, it’s that the best things in life — especially when it comes to art — are worth waiting for.

The Junk HeadRent and buy on AmazonYou can also find out more about the following: Vudu. Mad God Streaming is now available on ShudderAMC Plus is available for rent and purchase. AmazonYou can also find out more about the following: Vudu.