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A tale of endurance and spiritual transformation through suffering. After making a pact with the devil, a former Civil War soldier is given unlimited riches, but he will lose his soul unless he wears a bearskin and goes without a bath, haircut, shave, or manicure for seven years. Bearskin grows a repulsive seven-year accumulation of hair, grime, and fingernails, and is cut off from human society. But when his heart opens to the suffering of another, he wins the hand of a kind and beautiful girl, and the devil is obliged to give him a bath.

In a contest with the devil, a Civil War soldier must not wash nor pray for seven years.

(Bearskin) has the pungently bleak and chilly look of The Conqueror Worm or The Wicker Man or one of those other bleaky-chilly British horror pictures...but it's playfully creepy rather than horrific...except for one or two abrupt exits, it is a model of short filmmaking, suitable for imaginative children and not so innocuous as to bore adults