The Backwater Gospel
2011 · 9m · Denmark
Directed by Bo Mathorne
Genres: animation, horror, western
Tones: dark, darkly comic
In a drought-ravaged Dust Bowl town ruled by a hellfire preacher, the arrival of a silent, skeletal Undertaker pushes a congregation into violent, self-destructive frenzy.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A sermon on religious hysteria delivered in ten minutes of hand-drawn nightmare — the Undertaker doesn't even have to lift a finger before the congregation tears itself apart.
Mathorne stages a Dust Bowl morality play with the visual density of Mike Mignola — gothic Americana animated to within an inch of its life. The anti-religion thesis is blunt but the imagery is genuinely operatic.
Dust Bowl horror-western animated as hellfire-preacher allegory ending in a mass-hysteria massacre — strong premise, strong reputation. The YouTube link is dead, which the vault should flag, but the film itself is canonical.