Mariana Rekka
It’s a Saturday morning in the ’90s. The sun is out, the world is buzzing – but you’ve got a mission: plant yourself in front of the TV and don’t move. You’re deep into a bag of sugar-dusted cereal, the remote control’s sticky, but whatever. That video game isn’t gonna beat itself and the weird cartoon you’re not allowed to watch is on. Everything else can wait.
Eddie Alcazar’s (The Vandal) Bullet Time knows that feeling. It doesn’t just remember it – it honors it, chugs an energy drink, and body-slams it through a glitch in the space-time continuum straight into your face. No questions asked.
The freshly-baked pilot begins in Dew Side, a beach town held together by junk food and corrupted pixels. Guiding us through this world is Bullet, a turbo-charged bull terrier with a hunger for snacks and a dream to win the Battle Blast tournament – with the help of his weird friends. The reality they inhabit is loud, unstable, and melting at the edges. Kind of like your old CRT monitor.
“I wanted to make something meaningful that brought back the spirit of character-driven animation from the ’90s – like Ren & Stimpy or Beavis and Butt-head – but with a modern, gamer-centric twist.” – Alcazar on the aims of his short
And it is exquisitely animated. Every frame feels like it was designed with driven fingers and a hyperactive heart, poured onto the screen without holding back. Some moments, like the chicken leg shot, are almost tender in how lovingly they’re crafted. It’s the kind of short that reminds you of beloved shows from your youth. A welcome contrast to the kind of brainless content that’s churned out on a schedule. It’s chaos, sure, but not without care. This is the sweet spot where experience meets affection. Where someone says, “This is dumb,” and someone else replies, “Exactly! That’s why we love it.”
The creator – who once worked on Medal of Honor – pours his entire gaming soul into Bullet Time. Hiding in the atoms of the craft there’s the flicker of a Street Fighter obsession, nods to Rocko’s Modern Life, a little Comix Zone attitude, and some Ren & Stimpy grotesque glee. But this isn’t just a nostalgic love-letter to the games and shows of the ’90s – it’s a mixtape made by someone who never stopped loving that world. A four-year passion project born from loss, meant to honor a real dog and powered by the kind of creative madness that only exists when you care way too much.
“Claymation felt weird and different in the best way, so we leaned into that” – Alcazar discussing the production of Bullet Time.
And then there’s the claymation.
Yeah. Alcazar says they could’ve gone with pixel art – it would’ve been easier. Predictable even. But instead, the “game world” inside Bullet Time is built with handmade clay models that look weird, warped, uncomfortably tactile. And the promise for the series is wild: each episode follows a different game genre, each with its own visual rules. In Bullet Time, nothing is static, and nothing is safe – and somehow, that instability makes it feel more real than anything else.
It’s hard not to feel nostalgic watching Bullet Time, but this is no trip to the past – it’s a glitchy portal into a world that never really existed, but somehow feels familiar. It’s about friendship, obsession, garbage food, gamer rage and the kind of grief that hides under the couch cushions. It’s irreverent, unhinged and totally ridiculous – just like being 14-years-old. Running on sugar. Half-asleep. Completely alive.