The "Tree From Hell"
2017 · 8m · Canada
Directed by André Desrochers
Genres: dark comedy, horror
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic
Lumberman Big Smallman hopes to fashion a festive wreath for the woman he plans to marry, but gathering materials exposes him to a poisonous plant known as Swamp Sumac.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A lumberman named Big Smallman courting a woman via poisonous plant exposure is exactly the kind of absurdist premise that makes you wonder what fever dream the director woke up from — and it works precisely because it commits to the bit without winking at the audience.
Desrochers situates this within a lineage of Canadian grotesque comedy and folk-horror that stretches back through animated tradition, executing the formal discipline required to make swamp sumac genuinely unsettling rather than merely cute.
The decision to play Big Smallman's gradual physical deterioration with complete deadpan sincerity — never letting the absurdist premise undercut the body horror — is what transforms an eight-minute gag into something that actually lingers.