Young Jean Berlot's mother has died in the lunatic asylum at Charenton. On his way home from the funeral he spends a night at a roadside inn. There he has a vivid dream: the same dream he always has in times of stress, in which two hospital orderlies in white coats try to force him into a straitjacket. After a violent struggle, Berlot always wakes up to find that the room has been completely demolished. Loosely based on two short stories by Edgar Allan Poe and inspired by the works of the Marquis de Sade. Described by Jan Svankmajer himself in a prologue to the film as a 'philosophical horror film' Lunacy combines live action and stop-motion, sex and violence, grand guignol terror and gallows humour, and a lot of animated meat. BBFC Certified 18