Western Animation / The Headless Chicken

The Headless Chicken was an upcoming independent cartoon short, directed by Nicholas John Pozega and due for release in late 2019.

The plot is set on a farm in an isolated countryside. The film begins with an innocent chicken (named Amos) being beheaded by his owner, Farmer Brown, so he can eat him for dinner. But by sheer coincidence, a literal underground cult called the Mystic Order of the Jiggly Buttocks performs a ritual that night, which unwittingly resurrects Amos just as Brown is about to eat him. Shocked at his now headless form, Amos swears revenge on the farmer, who is preparing to seek out and fight the undead chicken one on one...

The film has not been released and may have been canceled. Daily updates for it can be found on the Pozegatoons Facebook page.

Should not be confused with the Aberration soundtrack album The Headless Chickens.

Tropes:

• All There in the Manual: The chicken isn't named in the actual film, but Word of God says his name is Amos.
• Artistic License – Biology: Going from artwork on the Pozegatoons Facebook page, Amos has his throat and spine located sideways on his stump instead of on top of each other and with eyebrows attached to them, done so that Amos can have something resembling expressions.
• Back from the Dead: Amos is unwittingly resurrected by an underground cult living beneath Farmer Brown's house.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Despite being headless, Amos gets a fairly large pair of eyebrows above his stump.
• Contrived Coincidence: The entire plot is set into motion by the fact that there just happened to be an underground cult performing a ritual beneath Brown's farm.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The film is planned to be colored in a grayscale format.
• Mickey Mousing: The film is planned to be built and timed entirely around a pre-made soundtrack, in a way similar to how cartoons from The Golden Age of Animation were planned.
• Obliviously Evil: While Farmer Brown killing Amos was certainly wrong, as far as he knew Amos was just an ordinary farm chicken.
• Off with His Head!: The film starts with Amos being decapitated by Farmer Brown.
• Retraux: Defied. Nick has made it clear that while he intends to use traditional animation techniques for the film, it is not meant to be a retro cartoon at all.
• R-Rated Opening: The very first shots of the film have Amos getting decapitated by the farmer on screen, establishing the tone of the rest of the short.
• Short Film: The film is planned to be around 4 minutes in length.
• Shout-Out:
  • The film was inspired in part by a real life headless chicken, named Mike.
  • The underground cult that ressurects Amos is inspired by the Do-It-Or-Die cult from Bimbo's Initiation.
• Stylistic Suck: The film is planned to be animated in a very loose, choppy animation style with no tie-downs, clean up or inking for the drawings. Per word of the director, he was inspired to do this by Ralph Bakshi's The Last Days of Coney Island.
• White-and-Grey Morality: Granted, Amos has a perfectly good reason to be angry at Farmer Brown beheading him, but Brown had no idea what he was doing was wrong and has every reason to be terrified of a headless chicken coming alive to kill him.