What NOT to Do If You Crash Land on an Alien Planet – A Brilliant Animated Short by ESMA Students

Lurks should be a training video for the Intergalactic Federation of Planets called “What NOT to do if you crash land on a mysterious alien planet” because the protagonist does so many things wrong.  You would think that she has never watched a horror film before – and this trope-laden animated short by ESMA graduation students deliverers them one after another (after another).  Now, reading back, that doesn’t look like much of a plug for this, but I found it immensely entertaining (although I desperately wanted some sort of final twist in the tale, right at the end, which did not appear but which could have raised the bar here, in terms of structure and storytelling). 

The planet, spacecraft and character animation (especially the monsters) are extremely well realised, especially considering this is a student film.  There are any number of technically very difficult sequences in this short, and hats off to the team for delivering them with great aplomb.  Altogether, a chilling cautionary tale of how to survive an alien environment – or not.  The students who created this are Kelssy Abdou , Ikram Benmaza, Mélodie Carn, Amanda Cere, Adrien Chaumier, Maëlle Couzinier, Maëline Dalous, Victor Del Campo and Aglaée Pons. Music was by Valentin Guay with sound created by Tristan Le Bozec, Guilhem Favard and Jose Vicente.  Well done to everyone involved in the project.