Killing off a cute animal is one of the dirtiest tricks a filmmaker can pull to elicit an emotion from their audience, but a group of students from the Media Design School topped Mufasa, Bambi’s mom, and all of those other Disney deaths by revealing the tragic end of 27 computer-generated creatures in their short film Accidents, Blunders, and Calamities. A reimagining of Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies, the short revolves around a possum dad telling his possum kids about the different ways that bugs and animals can die, and—like the Gorey story—they’re all based around the letters of the alphabet (Andre the adder gets killed by arrows, Kelly the killer bee gets kicked by a goalkeeper, etc.).
There’s even a bit of a surprise ending—which we may have already spoiled if you’re familiar with how many letters are in the alphabet—and it’s all perfectly designed to tug at your heartstrings and maybe convince you to think twice the next time you, for example, zap a lizard with x-rays or whack a gerbil with a hockey stick.
You can see the full short below.
[via io9]