Way back in 1993, the American Beat writer William S. Burroughs wrote and narrated a 21-minute claymation Christmas film which was produced by Francis Ford Coppola. And, as you can well imagine, it’s not your typical smarmy holiday flic. The film – The Junky’s Christmas – is all about Danny the Carwiper, a junkie, who spends Christmas Day trying to score a fix. Eventually he finds the Christmas spirit when he shares some morphine with a young man suffering from kidney stones, giving him the “immaculate fix.”

Animator Nick Donkin and music video director Melodie McDaniel wring out the darkly comic bleakness of the story, which Burroughs narrates with excerpts from his spoken word album Spare Ass Annie. The anti-festive vibe is intensified by sudden rushes of movement and many expressive facial contortions, giving festive new meaning to the concept of going cold turkey.