TheAlienfranchise has proven surprisingly resilient since its humble beginnings as a standalone space horror film nearly 50 years ago. Since then, it’s spawned several sequels, prequels, and now a TV series,Alien: Earth,set just before theevents of the first film.Ridley Scott’sterrifying original has lingered in the public imagination for generations, and an IP-hungry Hollywood has been keen to give the people what they want.
For some fans of the franchise, waiting years between movies (or a whole week between episodes) might be too long to get their fix of grotesque creature designs and gritty, dystopian sci-fi worlds. If you might be one of these fans, then there’s a recent film you may not have heard of that could just fit the bill:Junk Head,the 2017 stop-motion masterpiece from Japan that owes a clear debt to the world ofAlienand the immortal creations of artist H.R. Giger.
Junk Headis the work of director Takehide Hori, and an expansion of his first short film,Junk Head 1.With a background in interior design, sculpture, and illustration, Hori had never attempted to make a film before taking on the original short, kicking off his directing career at the age of 40. Inspired byYour Namedirector Makoto Shinkai’sdebut shortVoices of a Distant Star,Hori decided to make the film entirely on his own, handling everything from puppet design and animation to voice acting and music.
Making the short on his own took Hori four years, and when it came time to expand it to feature length, he employed a small team of just three more people to speed up the process, at least a little bit. The full film finally saw release in Japan in 2017, with a re-edited version reaching an international audience in 2021.No less an authority than Guillermo del Toropraised the original short, calling it a “work of deranged brilliance” in a tweet.
All animation is a labor of love, andJunk Headis no exception.It shows a remarkable level of craft and dedication, particularly as a debut feature. Hori and his team were able to create an expansive, fully lived-in world, looking much bigger than what its limited budget might suggest.
So what doesJunk Headhave to do with theAliensaga?While the two aren’t related in any canonical sense, the world ofJunk Headfeels very much in line with the one envisioned by Scott and Giger all those years ago. The film takes place in a distant future where humanity has discovered the key to immortality, but lost its ability to reproduce in the process. Living in cities high above the ground, the lower levels have become the domain of the “Marigans,” artificially created life forms who have been able to evolve and adapt in all kinds of ways over the millennia.
One human, bored with his existence, volunteers for a mission to travel to the surface to study the Marigans' reproductive capabilities. On the way, his craft is shot down, leaving his synthetic body in ruins.He’s found by a ragtag group of Marigan scientists, who put his head on a new robot body. He ends up changing hands through a series of mishaps, losing his memory in the process before regaining it again.
It’s in the creature designs where theAlienconnection feels most apparent. While the Marigans take many forms, some of them lookextremely Xenomorph-like, albeit a little more fleshy, with extended heads and rows of sharp teeth. Others take the form of carnivorous worms, springing out of holes to eat whatever has the misfortune of crossing their path. It’s clear Hori took some inspiration from Giger’s uniquely horrifying work for his own creations.
Junk Head’sworld has the same kind of grimy feel as theAlienuniverse, where the future is far from gleaming surfaces and glamorous utopia. The film’s underground realms are a sprawling industrial wasteland with seemingly no bottom, each layer revealing another strange form of existence. But while the film’s world is undeniably dark, Hori’s touch is surprisingly light, with a goofy sense of humor that blends the grotesque with the whimsical. The whole thing is spoken in a goofy nonsense language that sounds like Donald Duck with a head cold, originally done to disguise the fact that Hori was doing most of the voices himself.
Junk Headis a truly remarkable achievement and a testament to what can happen when an artist fully commits to their vision. Hori intended the film to be the first of a trilogy, and the second installment,Junk World,was just released in Japan this past June. While no international release dates have been announced yet, theJapanese-language trailermakes it look like a much more ambitious project. IfAlien: Earth’stwo-episode premiere piqued your interest in more skin-crawling visions of the future,Junk Headmight be just the thing to satisfy your hunger.
Stream for free (with ads) on Tubi and Darkroom, or with a participating library card on Kanopy and Hoopla.
