When Fish Go Peopling

Dan Piepenbring marvels at the 1980 short seen above, Fisheye, by the Croatian animator Joško Marušić:

Fisheye is an inspired blend of the macabre and the mundane. Its premise is simple: instead of people going fishing, fish go peopling. At night, these jowly blue creatures of the deep take to the land, a murderous glint in their eyes—they feast on the residents of a sleepy coastal hamlet. While they’re well-bred enough to use forks, they seem to have forgotten that forks are intended for use with food that has already been killed. And they spareth not the rod: children are maimed, old ladies clubbed. If this doesn’t sound like your cuppa, give it sixty seconds; you may find yourself, as I did, transfixed. Is the film best paired with a psychotropic substance? That’s not my place to say. (Yes.)

A few years ago, Ian Lumsden described the experience of watching the film as “a chilling one”:

Josko’s whole design from sound by Tomica Simovic, colour scheme, images and violence is disquieting. Take the colour. Each variation on green or blue has a tinge that is unpleasant. No blue fish of this intimidating shade would be selected from the fishmonger’s slab. The beasts may waddle on land in ludicrous fashion but there is no laughter as they club old women to death or spear them with their forks. No mercy is shown by fish or fishermen; and note the absence of warmth amongst the humans, except perhaps for the small children who, let me emphasise, are not spared the net and thrown back for a later date. There are some remarkable scenes but perhaps nothing matches the net of humans being dragged to the sea by malevolent predators whose menace matches the nonchalance of the fishermen killing by torchlight unaware that their families are suffering a similar fate on land.