The lighting and shots of the European countryside help create a creepy and uneasy atmosphere, although at times it does look a little too similar to other works that portray the Middle Ages. It’s an impressive feat for a movie that doesn’t have any supernatural elements and it keeps the slower scenes from feeling boring. One of the more notable shortcomings of Medieval is that none of the actors give breakthrough performances.

Jan Svankmajer’s Alice, the esteemed Czech animator’s feature-film debut from 1988, is far more than just a strange, wonderful, and surreal trip set within the charming ambience of an Eastern bloc TV fairytale. It is a strikingly original attempt to wound the skin of the story and to reveal its body by almost entirely stripping it of Carroll’s language and converting it into a an eerie and unsettling dreamscape.