If you’re a massive horror aficionado such as myself, you likely have a huge stockpile of films waiting in your watch list, across multiple streaming platforms. With so many movies to view, and so little time, it’s often difficult to gauge what you’re in the mood for and when you have a couple of hours to properly devote. Horror is pretty much all I watch these days (and some of the comic book releases).
MAD GOD by Phil Tippett, is an experimental adult animated horror film, which was released in 2021 and made available on Shudder in 2022. This bonkers movie has been on my “to do” list since it hit streaming. I tried to watch it when it first came out, but due to its very peculiar and disjointed nature, I just wasn’t in the mood at the time, so it went back in the pile to be finished later.
Let me say, I regret that I didn’t have the time for it two years ago, because it is a cult classic masterpiece of stop motion cinema. Written, directed, and produced by Phil Tippett (a visual effects artist who has worked on such franchises as Star Wars and Jurassic Park), MAD GOD is a love letter to art and personal vision that was 30 years (!) in the making.
Impressively produced with a $150,000 dollar budget, the film merges stop motion animation with live action, practical effects, and a pinch of CGI. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what this film is intended to be about, as the plot isn’t the strong point. However, it features a stunning array of brilliant sequences which more than make up for a narrative that is sometimes hard to follow. The film oozes art and attention to detail.
We start things off with “The Assassin”, an ominous gas mask wearing figure who descends into the depths of a hellish underworld, of which I would consider to be the closest thing to Dante’s Inferno that has ever been put to screen. This cruel and harsh reality, in the midst of perpetual nuclear war and suffering, gives viewers a haunting nightmare landscape that is impossible to sum up in this short review. This bleak dystopia is something you have to see for yourself.
Imagine if Jim Henson Studios and Industrial Light and Magic had a baby who was the Antichrist, and we might begin to understand the themes of this incredible technical FX achievement. A year before the film was finished, creator Phil Tippett had a mental breakdown which caused him to be admitted into a psychiatric ward. After watching MAD GOD, we might understand why.
It is undoubtedly one of the most artistic films I’ve ever seen, as well as one of the most bizarre and surreal. There are times when you actually feel like you might be viewing a secret camera that exists in hell (if hell were to actually exist). Dark, brooding, atmospheric, creepy, intense and starkly original. All of this, as well as a terrific soundtrack, make MAD GOD a testament to the artist’s vision, and can serve as inspiration to other independent creators out there that with perseverance, all of their dreams, and nightmares, can come true.
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Michael A. Dyer is the host of the HORROR TO CULTURE podcast and website.
