Mad God (2022)

Mad God is a stop-motion experimental horror film written, produced, and directed by legendary animator Phil Tippett, who worked on such classics as Star Wars, Robocop, and Willow. The movie follows a character only referred to in the credits as “The Assassin”; who traverses on a maddening descent into an unknown Hellscape straight from your darkest nightmares. 

     The film was Tippett’s passion project, taking over thirty years to complete, with its production starting in 1990 and finally seeing its public release in 2022. Tippett began his work on Mad God while working on Robocop 2, and for three years his project was running strong. That is, until his time working on a little film called Jurrasic Park. During this time, he saw the potential of CGI, and it started stirring up some doubts. Believing stop motion was doomed to die and that CGI was the only future in filmmaking, Tippett abandoned the project for twenty years. Then, in 2013 he began plucking away at his project again, this time with some help. Tippett had now had volunteers, a small crew, and some of that sweet Kickstarter money to see his vision come to completion. Finally, in 2021, the film was officially completed and then saw a release to the horror streaming service Shudder, on June 16, 2022.

     The movie opens with a shot of what is presumably the Tower of Babel, followed by a religious text from the 26th chapter of Leviticus—“I will lay your cities in ruin and make your sanctuaries desolate and I will not savor your pleasing odors.”. The mysterious Assassin descends in a pod from the sky through several “realms” before finally touching the ground and departing from the steel tube in pursuit of his secret mission. As we follow him, we see him descend from Hellscape to Hellscape, observing the new terrors each holds. It’s reminiscent of Dante’s journey through the Inferno in the 1320 poem the Divine Comedy.

     This story doesn’t just follow the Assassin. Their part is just a subplot of the overall story of the film. With every new character we meet, we get more insight into the machinations of the world and what it all means, until we meet the titular Mad God. Each new character and realm gives us more clues into the working of the Mad God and why a character credited as “The Last Human” wants to destroy them. It was only at the film’s end that I realized how I was defining the title of the film all wrong. What is the definition of insanity again?

     The stop motion is a thing of grotesque beauty and, to be expected, is masterfully executed.  Each section of the world we see is a unique wonder that is pure nightmare fuel. Some scenes hold a blend of live-action and stop-motion as well, which produces a somewhat eerie effect. Dialogue is absent from this film, leaving the plot primarily ambiguous, but part of the fun of this film is trying to figure out what it all means as more and more is revealed to us until we finally hit that trip of a climax. 

     Ultimately, Mad God is a masterpiece of horror art that was well worth the thirty-year wait, and although there isn’t any spoken dialogue, it has something to say about apathy, greed, obsession, and ambition. The film expresses this through its characters’ actions and grim imagery, for which I loved every minute of. There’s nothing better than a film that warrants multiple viewings and provokes a conversation with friends after the credits roll. While this film tries to speak to us through its visual storytelling, if we should learn anything from it, it’s that you shouldn’t give up on your dream, especially if it’s a glorious nightmare.