Phil Tippett’s Mad God is inspirational, certainly not due to its subject matter, but because of the context surrounding its creation. Tippett, a virtuoso of stop-motion animation and creature design, revisited designs built over three decades to make this uncompromising, macabre meditation. The project feels like an artifact unearthed from a time capsule, dusted off to unveil a wholly unique aesthetic altogether, one that invites us to appreciate the depraved and the bizarre.
The film follows an anonymous assassin as he descends deeper into a bleak hell-scape, stunningly crafted out of practical sets and ignited into existence using stop-motion techniques. As the protagonist wades through the landscape of blood, pus, grime, and murk, we truly marvel at what practical effects can accomplish in this genre, bringing to life the gory and the grotesque in ways that CGI cannot. Tippet brings the best type of world-building to his project—the kind where there is no map or compass, and worlds seem to exist within worlds, like a living, breathing fractal artwork. Completely devoid of the spatial awareness we naturally crave, it’s up to the dark recesses of our minds to make meaning out of every bump in the night and to try to understand the laws that govern this peculiar land.
Each frame of Mad God is an entire world in itself—detailed, grueling, and strange. Every moment is so visually captivating that attention shifts quickly, creating a viewing experience that leaves us remarkably arrested in the present moment. Like a twisted haunted house, there’s no time to fully process what you’ve just seen; before you know it, you’re compelled to move to the next room, where another horror awaits. This makes piecing together a linear narrative an impossibility, but that’s okay because there isn’t one to be had anyway. Strange creatures inhabit every scene. Some are slaves to others. Some are eaten by others. Some are killed by others for ritual or sport. We witness life for a moment, then death for a moment, and then ultimately move to the next frame, leaving these monsters in the abyss.
Tippet somehow creates an ecosystem where each object, living or not, is crafted with such care and intention, yet is so utterly disposable at the same time. This dichotomy reflects a point that could be made about our own existence, offering some thought-provoking, existential musings of a nihilistic variety. While Tippet is the mad god of his own weird world, he might argue that our god is just as mad. Even in its abstractness, the film tells a tale of life and death, growth and destruction, depicting the human race negatively—as ill-fated, destined to repeat the same mistakes of war, pollution, and consumerism over and over. Cynical, sure, so how does it manage to be so moving? For the creative in all of us, it stirs something deep within. There is inherent beauty in listening to a singer sing or watching a dancer dance. Whatever your thing is, this artistic achievement inspires you to go do it. Phil Tippet’s thing is bringing creatures to life through stop-motion animation, and Mad God exists as a rare gift—the gift of a person creating exactly what they were meant to in this life.
Wonderfully Weird & Horrifying 