Slug Invasion
2012 · 6m · Denmark
Directed by Morten Helgeland, Casper Wermuth, Lasse Rasmussen, Carina Løvgreen, Kirsten Bay Nielsen, Polina Bokhan, Peter Egeberg, Magnus Myrälf, Maria B. Kreutzmann
Genres: animation, comedy, family
Tones: absurdist, humorous, whimsical
Killer slugs led by the notorious Sergeant Slug charge a Norwegian suburb garden to reach a juicy flower, defended by a diligent elderly lady.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Nine directors collaborating on a slug military invasion—it's exactly the kind of absurdist premise that shouldn't work but does, a deliberately stupid concept executed with enough commitment that it circles back to genuinely weird and funny. This is what happens when you ignore the memo about what animation 'should' be and just commit to the bit.
A formally assured comedic short that channels the European avant-garde tradition of anthropomorphic warfare (shades of Walerian Borowczyk's obsessive detail work) while maintaining accessible charm; the restraint in its absurdism and the careful pacing of the garden standoff shows real compositional intelligence.
The masterstroke here is treating a preposterous premise with genuine tactical seriousness—those slugs move with disciplined formation, the elderly defender has real agency, and the animation choice to render slimy invertebrates as a credible military threat transforms what could be cutesy into something genuinely tactile and strange.