The Origin of Creatures Short Film Is Quietly Creepy

By Nick Venable | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

The Dutch creative talent Floris Kaayk’s 2010 short The Origin of Creatures is twelve minutes of a post-apocalypse that I would want nothing to do with, should I ever live through an apocalypse. But only because of the things going on. Even in its ruin, the high-quality CGI still makes it a beautiful world.

The landscape, from foreground to horizon, is filled with the skeletal remains of ruined buildings, seemingly uninhabitable for any creature large or small. Unless, I guess, those creatures happen to be the cobbled-together remains of deconstructed human bodies, all being spurted out of a weird motherly queen creature who needs sunlight to procreate. This army of leg creatures, arm creatures, and giant eyeballs task themselves with creating a structure to ease their queen’s birthing process. Sounds like a rollicking good time, yes? At twelve minutes long, how can it be anything else?

It’s not as if eye-centric characters like the little finger-men are new to the game (remember Krumm from Aaahh!!! Real Monsters?), but these little guys, perhaps due to the usage of CGI, reminded me of Big Baby from Toy Story 3, which may have rendered me more sympathetic, as well as horrified.

The story itself, inspired by the Tower of Babel, is a tad more religion-based than Kaayk’s other claim to fame, the notorious “Human Birdwings” online series, which fooled quite a few people with its authentic P.O.V. shots and likable main character. Not having heard of Origin before now, I’m all the more intrigued as to where Kaayk’s career will take him. Like me, you can follow his latest work here.