Ashes of Doom

Stanley Takes a Trip

The importance of a balanced diet, told in story form for children through the medium of two-dimensional cut-out animation. Stanley is a little boy who is lethargic from lack of a balanced diet. Some animals take him for a trip on the back of a "train engine" bull, to discover what are the proper foods for health and where they come from.

Pot-pourri

A selection of publicity clips mounted together in one film to show the techniques of NFB animators. As in Hors-d'oeuvre, these "quickie" films were produced originally for government agencies, to carry messages to the public.

Boo Hoo

A cemetery in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada is seen through the eyes of its former superintendent.

Hoodoo McFiggin's Christmas

Based on the short story by Stephen Leacock, this is a satirical camera-animated story about Christmas expectations and the loss of innocence. Young Hoodoo has bought his parents cigars and a brooch for Christmas. As he opens his presents expectantly on Christmas morning, he keeps his hopes up until the end--will the next gift from Santa Claus be a pair of skates, a puppy dog, Noah's Ark, a sleigh or a drum...? When none of the gifts meets his expectations, he decides to do things differently next year.

Toys

Window shopping children watch as toy soldiers come to life and fight a war with all its unvarnished ferocity and horror.

Neighbours

In this Oscar-winning short film, Norman McLaren employs the principles normally used to put drawings or puppets into motion to animate live actors. The story is a parable about two people who come to blows over the possession of a flower.

Christmas Cracker

Three separate sequences related to Christmas, animated in different styles: cutout animation of children dancing in the snow to "Jingle Bells," stop-motion animation of toys come to life, and cel animation of a man who seeks the ideal star to top his Christmas tree.

One Little Indian

This short puppet animation from the fifties tells the story of Magic Bow, a First Nations boy endowed with magic gifts. Magic Bow is in the big city for the first time, thrilling audiences with his tricks at the Wild West Rodeo. Outside the arena, cars, trucks and buses zip by at dizzying speeds. With the help of some savvy city dwellers, Magic Bow learns a few important traffic rules to help him navigate the streets safely.

The Energy Carol

An unconventional version of The Christmas Carol.

McLaren on McLaren

An opening address, a tribute and highlights of a long and productive career--McLaren on McLaren is Norman McLaren on camera. The occasion is the opening of a prestigious festival in Arnhem, the Netherlands, in November, 1983, marking the tenth anniversary of Holland Animation. The renowned animator pays homage to those who merged their arts with his, and to the National Film Board, which gave him forty-two years of artistic freedom.

Canon

Perhaps the only film whose content is totally based on the musical form known as canon. The first sequence is a simple demonstration of the canon "Frere Jacques" where four cubes dance and combine with one another on a checkerboard. The second sequence show four little human-like figures dancing in space. The third and most elaborate sequence shows a human going through several strange gesticulations. Through multiple printing we realize that the man, as in the previous sequences, is part of a visual canon and is making the gestures to himself. As we hear variations on the canonic theme so too do we witness visual variations: a woman and cat enters the canon. To show the musical technique of inversion, the image of the man is printed upside down.

Pinscreen

Pinscreen animation makes use of a screen filled with movable pins, which can be moved in or out by pressing an object onto the screen. The screen is lit from the side so that the pins cast shadows.

Six and Seven-Eighths

Grant Munro dances to New Orleans jazz music.

Vampyr

Allan Gray, a young man fascinated by the supernatural, goes to a small village where he feels a sinister force descending upon him. There, Allan meets an old man who asks him to protect his two daughters, for one of them has been bitten by a vampire.

Coffee and Cigarettes

An anthology of eleven vignettes featuring star-studded casts of extremely unique individuals who all share the common activities of conversing while drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.

Dracula

A British estate agent travels to Transylvania to meet the mysterious Count Dracula, who is interested in leasing a London castle. After Dracula enslaves the agent and drives him to insanity, the pair return to London together, where Dracula, a secret bloodsucker, begins preying on socialites.

The Lair of the White Worm

When an archaeologist uncovers a strange skull in a foreign land, the residents of a nearby town begin to disappear, leading to further inexplicable occurrences.

The Infernal Cauldron

A green-skinned demon places a woman and two courtiers into a flaming cauldron.

Bitten

A lovelorn paramedic rescues a woman left for dead after a deadly assault. When she refuses to go to the hospital, he takes her in, nurses her back to health and soon falls in love with her. Before long the mysterious woman suffers withdrawal symptoms, leaving the paramedic to believe his newfound love is a drug addict. Coming home to find a blood-drained corpse on his floor, he learns she does indeed have an addiction problem but it's not to drugs...

Dracula: Prince of Darkness

Whilst vacationing in the Carpathian Mountain, two couples stumble across the remains of Count Dracula's castle. The Count's trusted servant kills one of the men, suspending the body over the Count's ashes so that the blood drips from the corpse and saturates the blackened remains. The ritual is completed, the Count revived and his attentions focus on the dead man's wife who is to become his partner; devoted to an existence of depravity and evil.

Vampire's Kiss

A publishing executive is visited and bitten by a vampire and starts exhibiting erratic behavior. He pushes his secretary to extremes as he tries to come to terms with his affliction.

Van Helsing

Famed monster slayer Gabriel Van Helsing is dispatched to Transylvania to assist the last of the Valerious bloodline in defeating Count Dracula. Anna Valerious reveals that Dracula has formed an unholy alliance with Dr. Frankenstein's monster and is hell-bent on exacting a centuries-old curse on her family.

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Count Dracula, a 15th-century prince, is condemned to live off the blood of the living for eternity. Young lawyer Jonathan Harker is sent to Dracula's castle to finalise a land deal, but when the Count sees a photo of Harker's fiancée, Mina, the spitting image of his dead wife, he imprisons him and sets off for London to track her down.

Nosferatu the Vampyre

A real estate agent leaves behind his beautiful wife to go to Transylvania to visit the mysterious Count Dracula and formalize the purchase of a property in Wismar.

Nosferatu

The mysterious Count Orlok summons a happily married real estate agent to his castle, located up in the Transylvanian mountains, to finalise a terrifying deal.

Bridget Jones's Diary

Bridget Jones is an average woman struggling against expectations. As a New Year's resolution, Bridget decides to take control of her life, starting by keeping a diary in which she will always tell the complete truth. Her charming boss takes an interest in her, and she cannot stop running into a rather disagreeable acquaintance whom Bridget cannot help finding quietly attractive.