"Lunacy" opens the same way as another recent fantasy film; Terry Gilliam’s comparable but far less successful "Tideland." Both films include entertaining preludes in which the director directly addresses the audience and shares his idiosyncratic views on his film.

Jan Svankmajer, the director of "Lunacy," begins the film by stating, "Ladies and gentlemen, what you are about to see is a horror film, with all the degeneracy peculiar to the genre. It is not a work of art. Today, art is all but dead."

"Lunacy" may not be a work of art in its traditional sense, but it has many artistic qualities such as a screenplay that touches upon philosophic issues and allegorical elements in the story.

It is a visually inventive and highly entertaining piece of arty trash (or is it trashy art?) that subverts or goes against most traditional notions of beauty and taste.

It pays tribute to Bunuel, Poe and De Sade and it includes many scenes of disgusting perversion, heartfelt dramatic scenes, and sick comedy bits intermingled with a few too many shots of moving chunks of meat. The dancing meat scenes were a bit overdone, and some of the fat in the film could have been trimmed.

Of course, the audience for this kind of film is limited, and I think you can probably tell by this point if the film is for you

"Lunacy" is an extremely subversive and transgressive film that skillfully combines live action with animation. It was made by Jan Svankmajer, the Czech animator, who also did "Alice" and "Conspirators of Pleasure." He has a small but devoted cult following in the US, and none of his films will ever out gross Speilberg’s works.

The plot was taken from two obscure Poe stories, and it begins when Jean dreams that two monstrous, bald orderlies are taking him away. The audience is meant to question as to whether it’s a dream or a gruesome reality.

The Marquis (Jan Triska) listens to Jean’s problems and he suggests that he check himself into a local asylum. The seemingly crazy but benign Marquis apparently runs it with Dr. Murlloppe, but not everything is how it seems.

Soon the sexually inexperienced Jean is attracted to Charlotte, a young, caring and sexy female prisoner. She tries to convince him that escaped lunatics are running the asylum, and that the real doctors are being held prisoner in the basement.

On the other hand, a doctor tries to convince Jean that Charlotte is a conniving and promiscuous femme fatale trying to pass as a saint.

Jean must choose who to believe he must make some tough choices.

Like Michel Foucault’s writings (especially "The Birth of the Clinic,") the results of his decision may make viewers question the morality of existing power structures in society. The asylum could represent any school, government or social institution. The film also may raise awareness of the plight of asylum inmates.

But "Lunacy" is not primarily a socially conscious topical film. It has more in common with a carnival sideshow than a Stanley Kramer film.

However, the film never completely loses its intelligence or fails to fascinate even when it is trying to gross out or disgust the audience.