It's been 12 years since we last had a proper Doom game, but that sad oversight will be remedied next Friday (which beautifully, conveniently, happens to be Friday the 13th) when id Software reboots the series with, well, Doom. The reception of its recent multiplayer beta was decidedly mixed, but there's still definitely some excitement in the air, and it's leading to the creation of some bizarrely wonderful things. Take, for instance, Lee Hardcastle's ultraviolent claymation trailer for Doom featuring his character Claycat.It's an homage to Doom both new and old, with nods to the recent gory gameplay trailers mixed with references to the Doomguy's sidelong glances in the original release. It's hilarious in parts, as when the Doomcat uses a dead soldier's limb to open a touch-based lock in the shape of paw. It's violent in a way that manages to evoke both shock and awe with but three minutes to work with.But more to our purposes, Hardcastle's stop motion work here is also technically outstanding. When the Doomcat pulls a gun out of a box and immediately splatters it with a demon's guts, when he blasts a cacodemon entrails on a tunnel's walls, when he punches a demon's head, the moments masterfully conceal the feats of patience and prowess it must have taken to pull off something this entertaining.Doom is certainly comfortable territory for Hardcastle, a clay animator with clients ranging from Adult Swim to Square Enix who once said "I build people out of clay and I murder them" when asked to describe his work. Indeed, in the context of his other work, "Claycat's Doom" is actually rather tame. His YouTube channel is crammed with this kind of stuff, including an interrogation of the Frozen crew in the style of John Carpenter's The Thing and a profoundly disturbing—and no, that's not sarcasm—take on the couch gags from The Simpsons.