Mad God

'Mad God' is equally weird and demented; a mergence of the nightmarish and the nonsensical into one wildly ambitious ride. Basically it feels like a glimpse into the mind of a madman; into a place both violated and broken without reprieve and without hope.

This is what you get when the imagination is pushed into warped overdrive - a fully realised vision of a hellish dystopia. And all of it is gorgeously (grotesquely) brought to life by stop-motion animation and detailed sets.

It's hard to rate this as I would a film with a story because this is more of an experience: a vignette-like tour through various strange environments and witnessing its even stranger denizens doing all manner of strange things... Top marks for effort, but it might have worked better as a series of 10-minute shorts, since even at 80 minutes my attention began to waver with nothing coherent to latch on to.

6.5/10.

No doubt a visual spectacle and impressive stop-motion affair from Phil Tippett, but Mad God has essentially zero plot or reason to care for anything that's going on. Some unknown guy wanders around a machinery place seeing weird stuff, and that's pretty much it. There's no dialogue at all. If visual mindscrew-ery stuff and style over substance is your cup of tea, then you might love it. As for me, I needed more than that.

5/10.

You might not know Phil Tippett by name, but if you've watched science-fiction movies for the past 50-odd years, particularly those with effects courtesy of Industrial Light & Magic, you doubtless know of his contributions to cinema. From Roger Corman to George Lucas to Steven Spielberg, this man has done stop-motion and creature design for some of the greats.

Ever since the production of Robocop 2 and Jurassic Park, there's another movie Tippett has been working on: a passion project that represents 30 years of toil that has, in a sense, been taking place "behind the scenes" of all these better-known productions. It spent a considerable number of years on the shelf too, admittedly, but thanks to the magic of Kickstarter, the project -- as dark and dreary as it may be -- has now seen the light of day.

That film is Mad God, a seminally unsettling and transfixingly dreamlike journey into the depths of... I don't even know where. Combining stop-motion and puppetry (the stuff Tippett is best at) with a bit of live-action and seemingly some CGI during the scenes that were likely produced last, the movie is unrelenting in its barrage of deranged images and so feels longer than it is -- albeit not in a boring way, but rather in the sense that a mere 5 minutes of runtime will be so rich with new, disturbing sights and sounds that they seem like 20.

Indeed, these are some of the most memorable images of this entire movie year. No sequence is quite like the last. They recall the nightmare-inspired short films of David Firth -- with some splashes of SFX-heavy classics like Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, et al. -- and also made me think of Vernon Chatman (of The Shivering Truth and XAVIER: Renegade Angel), whose works I often claim have a method to the madness, as the saying goes. More precisely, I propose that "Rarely has this much madness represented this much of a method".

Yes, as bonkers as this movie is in terms of tone and presentation, I often felt like I "understood" much of what I saw; like there were parallels, symbols, and distorted metaphors for the cruelties inherent to human society (as seems natural for a work of dystopian sci-fi horror). Some images bring to mind the "faceless", disposable nature of human lives in a world of industry and war, while a closing sequence -- inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey -- indicates that this system will continue to be replicated so long as humans are replicated. Something like that, anyhow.

Even when I didn't really understand what I was seeing, I wanted to learn more. I wanted to explore this universe further; to see what other layers there might be and what other creatures might roam beneath the rubble or behind the 1984-esque monitors. I wanted to see just how much deeper into the bleak depths Phil Tippett's imagination could bring us. I mentioned before that each scene has enough content and visual imaginativeness to fill multiple. Yet, this feels like but a glimpse into the world of Mad God.

Between this and the new season of Love, Death & Robots, 2022 is shaping up to be a triumphant year for those who truly make our movies happen through their painstaking VFX work, knack for design, and whatever else. If you're easily upset by violence or disturbing imagery, you probably shouldn't watch this; the cruelty inflicted upon these puppets is more nauseating than most live-action gore I've seen. That being said, anyone who respects cinema and special effects should see it at least once, and those who have lost faith in the art form -- insisting that Hollywood, with its modern creative bankruptcy, represents the totality of film (while refusing to seek out wildly imaginative, impassioned pieces like this) -- should see it twice.

Long story short: I think it's fair to say this is the best movie Phil Tippett has directed since Starship Trooper 2. Log on to Shudder and search for it, you handsome devils. Bring a puke pail.

Mad God is one of the most visually and audibly arresting films I have ever seen. To say that the technical craft on display is striking would be a criminal understatement. This is thoroughly the singular vision of a master artist, and I am so glad I got to experience it.

It is chock full of metaphorical depth related to man's relationship to both creation and destruction, and for those who are patient and are in love with the macabre, there will be so much for you to glean from it.

As for myself, I did glean a bit from the film's heavy messages, though the extremely sparse narrative left me wanting a LOT more.

We never stay with a character for longer than 20 minutes, and our journeys with them are always cut short right as they're getting interesting. The lack of any clear stakes, motivations, or goals makes it extremely hard to get invested in, and makes 83 minutes feel like two hours.

It's clear that Phil Tippett used the 30 years of production to really get his visual ideas to be made manifest in gorgeous glory, but I do so wish that he had spent more of that time writing instead.

Mad God (2021) is a unique animated gem that was recently added to Shudder. The storyline follows a man who descends into a lost city in ruins. When he gets there he fines an array of death, torture and monstrosities that are a result of this lifestyle. He will search the city for the source of its pain and agony...

This movie is directed by Phil Tippett (Starship Troopers 2) and contains the voices of Alex Cox (Repo Man), Anthony Ruivivar (Tropic Thunder) and Talal Selhami.

The animation in this is fun and unique and reminded me a little bit of the movie 9. The universe is fascinating and the creatures within it are clever and well done. There's a good use of lighting to create intensity and curiosity. The storyline is a bit all over the place and hard to follow. The film focuses more on its outstanding special effects, gore and worthwhile action scenes rather than the plot. The surgery scenes in this are tremendous and the tank battles are very well done.

Overall, there's a lot to like here visually and conceptually. I just wish there was a better plot to take it over the top. I would score this a 7.5/10 and strongly recommend it.