Yellow Cake

Scholars of scandal and nuclear espionage will know yellow cake as a form of Uranium. Here it's not quite as explosive, at least initially, though it certainly brings with it a degree of skulduggery, misadventure, and cruelty.

There's a little town called Bakertown, where the natives drink beer and eat little cakes. All is bucolic, cheery, animated in a style somewhere between old Tex Avery pictures, Warner Brothers classics, and Ren And Stimpy. All is well until the appearance of a monstrous cat, all bass notes and bloodshed, and the town is rendered unto ruins, until the feline cataclysm is averted by the titular cakes.

Soon we descend into an exploitative parable, direct allusions to 1984 abounding as the top-hatted burgher gains a crown for a brim, his walrus-mustachioed face posted on every wall. Title cards, 'fritz helmets' (but sadly no picklehaube) on the cats, all give this the feel of a film from the 30s, especially musically. That's no bad thing. Nick Cross' film has a certain timelessness to it, the dawn of a nostalgic age. The ending is fittingly callous, given the darkness with which it flirts.

A 'direct-to-internet' release, it's viewable Vimeo, see embedded video below:

Yellow Cake from Nick Cross on Vimeo.