Get away from her you b****’ – Piella vs Fluffles in A Matter of Loaf and Death

Horror Moments: Wallace & Gromit Edition

[Spoilers: A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008), Aliens (1986), Beowulf (c. 700-1000 AD)]

‘Horror Moments’ is a light-hearted series examining horror-inflected scenes and themes in unexpected places. The ‘moments’ are published weekly on Thursday mornings, and I share articles on the history of magic, theatre, storytelling, and more on Monday afternoons – don’t forget to subscribe!

At the climax of Aardman animation’s A Matter of Loaf and Death, the put-upon poodle who has been forced to assist Piella in her murderous schemes finally gets her own back.

As Piella tries desperately to get to Wallace, her intended final victim, Fluffles jumps into the yellow forklift baking machine and faces off against her former mistress.

 It’s Ripley vs the Alien Queen from James Cameron’s Aliens (1986)

A sequel to the sci-fi horror Alien (1979), Aliens is first and foremost an action film, but its climax builds upon the horror of the original ‘xenomorph’ monster by showing us something even worse: its mother.

The monster-mother has been a clever way of upping the ante since at least as early as the epic Old English poem Beowulf (c. 700-1000AD). After the hero slays the beast Grendel, his vengeful mother turns up. This time it really is personal: the second monster is enraged that he has killed her lovely little boy.  

The Alien Queen is larger and more aggressive than the original xenomorph and she has something precious to protect: the brood of eggs from which the next generation of face-huggers will burst. Humans are a potential host for her parasitical babies, but now they threaten to destroy them.

Originally written as a male character in Alien, Ellen Ripley returns in the sequel and her femaleness is now made use of thematically as she becomes a stand-in mother for the little girl nicknamed ‘Newt’ (her real name is Rebecca by the way) who is hiding underneath a grill in the floor, just like Wallace when Fluffles and Piella stare each other down.

Ripley’s famous line “Get away from her you b****” as she marches up to the queen in her exosuit, is a sign that the monster has met its match: two forces of maternal fury are about to collide.

“Come to mummy, Fluffy-wuffy” leers Piella.

Wallace at first assumes it is Gromit who has come to his rescue before realising his mistake “well done lad…lass?”

It’s touching that, in Loaf and Death, it is a female character who gets to save the day. In squaring off against Piella, Fluffles breaks free from the control of a bully and finds her voice (metaphorically if not literally).

In a story that has turned the narrative of female victims and male stalking villains on its head, it makes sense that a female hero must emerge and do battle with the monster to decide the story’s end.

Which brings us to the end of the first ever series of ‘horror moments.’ I hope you’ve enjoyed our journey through the wonderful Wallace & Gromit series. With a new film on its way “Vengeance Most Fowl,” it’ll be great to see what Aardman does next, but I suspect whatever direction they take, there will be plenty of horror tropes along the way.

So what’ll the next batch of horror moments be based around? You’ll have to wait until next week to find out but as a little clue: this body of work featured heavily in a film starring Vincent Price… until then,

Happy nightmares everyone!

Horror moments are posted every Thursday and a wide variety of articles exploring the history of magic, theatre, storytelling, and more are published on Monday afternoons.

Special thanks today go to my newest paid subscriber, Peter Hickman aka @peterhickman1 whose series ‘Holistic and Dangerous Gifts,’ where soft Sci-Fi meets Hard Fantasy, can be found on Amazon. Check out his Substack page for more on the scientific, cultural, and aesthetic backgrounds of these stories. Thank you so much for helping to guarantee the future of this newsletter, it’s amazingly encouraging to have this kind of support so early on and I’ve got lots of exciting benefits for paid subscribers in the works. Watch this space!