Blood Tea and Red String

(2006) ***1/2

I figured I should counter my bad stop animation experience with a good one. Blood Tea & Red String is a dialog free tale of two classes battling over the doll they both covet. The upper crust white mice pay the simple creatures who live under the oak tree to make a human faced doll for them. Upon completion the oak creatures fall in love with the doll and decide to give the white mice their money back and keep her for themselves. The mice are none too happy with this and later sneak back and steal the doll. The oak creatures then set out to retrieve their prized possession and following some very odd adventures a battle ensues over the doll.


This feature had everything you'd want in an adult animated feature. It's intelligent, funny and entertaining. Some of the most memorable scenes in the film feature things you just wouldn't imagine animated critters doing. I don't mean gross and outrageous things like in the Freaky flick either. A couple of examples: The oak creatures go to see a frog guru and take a trip on some hallucinogenic berries in the process. Also, the mice get drunk on blood tea and 2 of them get in a fist fight over a card game.


If I have a complaint at all about the film it wold be that some actions go on a little too long. When they pass the point of being amusing and becomes annoying. If you watch Family Guy then you probably know just what I mean. In this film that would be the oak creatures making their way through the guru frog's labyrinth as well as the mice card game. Almost seemed like they were padding time to make the feature a little longer. But the appearance of the human faced spider makes up for it. I was extremely happy with this find, it's exactly the type of thing I was hoping to discover in my animated horror quest.