[The Backwater Gospel, 2011]

Created by: Bo Mathrone

100% Decadence



Set in an animated western small town, the [Backwater Gospel] was done as a Bachelor's film project by Bo Mathorne for the Animation Workshop, it is a creative representation of religious mediums, extremists and the inwardness of humanity when fear descends upon the entire condition.

A cowboy climbs the power lines in an effort to repair it, falls and meets his death. The Grim Reaper arrives on a bicycle, measures his body and collects him.

In town, the bell to the church rings and everyone heads towards the church on the hill like zombies under the religious spell of the fire-breathing preacher. While in church, the man who denies religion is playing music and begins to see the arrival of crows all over the time. He gets up, knocks on the window of the church and tells them that "the undertaker is coming." Everyone goes into a panic and runs out of the church, nervous as to who the undertaker is coming for, riding into town on his bicycle. He parks his bike and sits in the middle of town, creating a ghost town as citizens peer from the window in fear, afraid to come out.

After a week, the residents come out, carrying huge wooden crosses, heading to church to hear the preacher states that the lord is testing them through the torment of the undertaker's arrival. The preacher claims that the man outside playing the music who refuses to come to church is the cause of the undertaker's arrival. Coming to the conclusion, the preacher states that the lord wants the armed parisioners to destroy the bad apple and thus return harmony to their town. A lynch mob ensues as the music player attempts to get away from their chase. The music player is stoned to death at the hands of the religious followers, yet the undertaker has remained, motionless, in his same position. The storm of the rain causes the mob to then turn on one another, killing each other in the hope that being the sole survivor would spare them from the undertaker. The angry ogre son who rings the church bell tells his father that he has brought this upon them and charges to kill him. The pastor opens his bible and reveals two revolvers, reaching for one and kills his charging son.

When the rain has stopped, the entire town lay in the aftermath of mayhem, of self-massacre. The Undertaker gets up and begin measuring all of the bodies. It is clear then that he had not come for a single soul (if so, his collection would have ensued after the death of the music player) but he has come for the whole town, knowing that with the admixture of weakness and fear, they would commit such heinous acts upon themselves in the effort for self-preservation and thus give him a greater body count.