We have come a long way from Ray Harryhausen, the father of modern stop-motion tech and application. And yet, it’s still the same. It’s all about bringing something inanimate to life. Today’s film would specifically amend that statement to “bringing something dead to life.” Stopmotion the film is a work of necromancy and inner torment. And I really hope it doesn’t describe any real life stop-motion artists, yet such begs the question where then, did this sadistic self-loathing vision come from?
Ella (Aisling Franciosi) is the anonymous daughter of a stop-motion legend. However, her mother Suzanne (Stella Gonet) has arthritis in her hands, so Ella has to do all the heavy lifting for this next film. And by “heavy lifting,” I mean moving a piece of hair a millimeter at a time. Such is the work of a stop-motion animator.
When mom is hospitalized with a stroke, Ella takes over mom’s film, vowing to finish it. She even rents an apartment dedicated to such a task. This is one of those plot points that only makes sense in retrospect … I mean, why leave a studio specifically set up for filming the project you’re working on to go to an empty apartment to do the same? At the apartment, however, Ella meets a little girl (Caoilinn Springall) who convinces her that mom’s fantasy film is bunk; why not film this horror idea of mine?
Again, this is a plot point that only makes sense in retrospect. Trust me, it does make sense, but you have to see the film. The problem I have here is not with the basic plot, but with the critical subplot. You’re going to use stop-motion filming to make a horror? Instead of a fantasy? Cheap horror has got to be the easiest thing to film: bunch of makeu
p, bad lighting, go! Stop-motion is for remaking The Great Escape, but with chickens. You hardly need clay to make a ghoul.
But I digress…
Point is, Ella not only makes a creepy clay villain (The “Ash Man”), yet continues to take plotting cues from her pre-pubescent screen-writer. And the cues get more and more creepy, like insisting that Ash Man be made from something dead. For what is stop-motion if not bringing dead things to life. Meanwhile, Ella herself is starting to go to pieces as demonstrated by her inability to fit in with the stop-motion crowd. “There’s a stop-motion crowd?” Oh yes, there is. Oh, and by the fact that she’s starting to dream about her film.
Stopmotion is a weird and disturbing film. There’s no mistaking it for anything other than horror, which Ray Harryhausen might have foreseen, but never indulged. Even the worst of Harryhausen monsters always seem kind of adorable. Who hasn’t emerged from a Harryhausen film not wanting to duel with a skeleton or outwit Medusa? Yeah, that ain’t this film. The only thing you’ll want to do after Stopmotion is go to another film, preferably something rated G. While I will never love Stopmotion, I respect it, horror-wise, and rate it significantly above the kind of film I described upstairs; this is better than: makeup, bad lighting, go!
Ella knew the art of stop-motion
And gave herself a directorial promotion
But her project got blurred
When reality slurred
Leaving her adrift in an insecure ocean
Rated R, 93 Minutes
Director: Robert Morgan
Writer: Robin King, Robert Morgan
Genre: Animating your own psychosis
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who self-diagnose
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: If you don’t like animation, this is kind of the nth degree
