Reaper Madness (1990) is an animated educational film created by Nick Donkin to promote behaviours protecting against the transmission of HIV/AIDS, which was a major public health concern at the time. In this excerpt, two gay men having sex on a beach and a married man visiting a sex worker are being tracked by the Grim Reaper, who is thwarted when they produce a condom.

The tone of the film is quirky and light, in contrast to the controversial Grim Reaper public health campaign of 1987, when Death was a hooded skeleton bowling down human 'pins' representing people with AIDS. Reaper Madness encourages people to practise safe sex through humour rather than fear. This Reaper spies on the lovers while precariously balancing on a window-washer scaffold, or comically scrubbing a surfboard (if Death likes ten-pin bowling, why not surfing too?).

The gay community criticised the Grim Reaper ads for saying ‘At first, only gays and IV drug users were being killed by AIDS’, suggesting that the problem was more serious now that it affected everyone else. Here, the gay couple on the beach and the husband and sex worker are depicted as being equally at risk and equally protected by using condoms. The Grim Reaper, and by implication AIDS, doesn’t discriminate.

Donkin’s use of stop-motion claymation adds to the film’s quirky appeal. The quick, jerky movements of the characters and the camera, fast cutting, canted angles and the characters’ bulging eyes contribute to the film’s anarchic humour. These stylistic elements are also present in Donkin’s YoGo ads, which spoof ‘90s action movie blockbusters.