Elckerlyc or Elckerlijc (literally, everybody / everyman) is based on an old Dutch morality play. Everyman (George Bruens) steals and enjoys life until he meets a sweet and simple girl. They fall in love, but she dies at the hands of an idiot. Everyman decides to avenge her death on his fellow men though he doesn’t know how exactly. A story about a man and his journey, but at the same time about the escape from death, that turns into a quest. The film uses as lot of symbolism and archetypical characters such as 'the fool', 'the girl' and 'the artist' (the creator). According to some critics, Stelling succeeded in keeping some measure of control over his second film, but others missed the impetuous strength of Mariken van Nieumeghen. Once again the film attracted more foreign than national attention. Stelling became a new cult filmmaker with his two medieval excesses. From the Dutch Film Encyclopedia: "Another uncannily beautiful, stunningly stubborn version of a medieval morality play. The miracle of Elckerlyc is that a film maker with this much flair is not scared of filming a vision instead of a standard drama or story. The donkey-carrying Elckerlyc, who plays god by killing other people, becomes in Stelling's sparkling film a Kafkaesque modern man."