Directed By Robert Morgan

Starring – Aisling Franciosi, Stella Gonet, Caoilinn Springall

The Plot – A talented stop-motion animator named Ella (Franciosi) becomes consumed by the grotesque world of her horrifying creations, after the untimely hospitalization of her overbearing mother.

Rated R for violent/disturbing content, gore, some adult language, sexual material and brief drug material.

Stopmotion – Official Trailer | HD | IFC Films (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

Memorable horror should disturb and disorient audiences on a thrill ride through nightmarish landscapes, and with those rules in mind, “Stopmotion” is among the most unforgettable horror films that I have seen in recent memory, combining the psycho-cerebral of real life family drama with imaginative execution in everything from the movie’s artistic direction, to its seamless blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality. Credit belongs firmly to Morgan, who, as a short film director turned feature length, manages to cleverly tie together parental abuse and artistic obsession smoothly in ways that makes this feel like an entirely new monster to the genre, and one that doesn’t require the indulgences of cheap jump scares or buckets of blood to breathe life into an audience. Instead, Morgan invests all of the time inside of a scintillating slow-burn towards the movie’s atmosphere, conjuring an overhanging isolation factor and dread to the loneliness of artistic perfection that the writer and director uses to emphasize the many unforeseen elements that go bump in the night. The metaphorical meanings behind the direction of the narrative are easy enough to pick up on, while leaving plenty more room for expansive interpretation, and while the movie’s third act does border some cryptic waters of ideology, I think the plunge will inevitably offer some kind of answers and solidity for everyone, toeing a responsibly rewarding thin line that welcomes many endearing discussions between its audience, post-film. Morgan’s attention to production is pure perfection here, articulating the tenderness of sound design that cleverly echoes the movements of a claymation doll to those of the human anatomy to drive Ella’s unfurling madness, all the while surmizing some deeply unsettling visuals involving stopmotion animation that unsurprisingly works amazing in the depths of horror. Being a hardcore fan of rock band Tool, who use stopmotion animation for all of their music videos, I’ve always been familiar with the uncanny movements and twisted designs of its artificial characters, and when incorporated here to reflect Ella’s narrative in the forefront of the setting, is able to take full advantage of how twistedly depraved that this story gets, all with an appreciation for the craft of animators that illustrates how much time and energy goes into a single solitary frame of film, to which Morgan himself is familiar with, being a stopmotion animator with years of experience in the craft. Because of such, the animated sequences are a nice treat to see played out with real time motions, especially with French/Spanish conceptual sound composer Lola de la Mata’s elevating score gripping us to the edge of our seats with pulsing, pounding repetition, and while they’re meant as a foreboding warning of such to what reflectively transpires in Ella’s real life, they’re commanded with so much unfiltered attention that we can’t ever look away from, establishing a gripping gravity to its developments that inspire Ella’s newfound animalistic tendencies towards attaining the perfection she seeks in her artform. It’s not a film that I would necessarily consider scary, but one that effortlessly immerses you into desolation of its protagonist, where isolation and urgency can be found in a contextual story that only spans three days, but ones that overwhelm Ella with what feels like atmospheric toxicity, where the deeper she goes into her film, the more turbulent her life becomes. Because the film’s ensemble is limited, we’re not only able to spend more time by Ella’s side, but it also helps to keep the aforementioned isolation factor in the limited but varying settings that the story continuously takes us through, offering her little to no levity along the way, especially with interactions between her and other side characters that are uncomfortable with misunderstandings. Ella is played remarkably by the already iconic Aisling Franciosi, whose memorable turn in 2018’s “The Nightingale” earned a go-ahead Oscar nomination from this critic, especially for her emotionally wrenching commitment to a performance that could easily be labeled as traumatic. More of the same resonates here, as Aisling captures the overwhelming helplessness and hopelessness of her dreaded disposition, where an initial timidness and ambiguity as the near silent partner of her overbearing on-screen mother eventually gives way to a full-fledged evolution that only maximizes Franciosi’s emotional depth, leaving Ella ripe for the winds of change that come with some terrifying realizations within herself, all the while enacting a cinematic magnetism while standing front and center of each frame that the camera practically begs for with lucidly spellbinding imagery. She’s complimented but not succeeded by second time feature length actress and eleven-year-old Caolinn Springall, who indulges in the kind of sharp-cutting honesty that only a child can capably muster. Springall’s dryly unapologetic deliveries amid blunt observations occasionally border precociousness in ways that could easily be distracting towards a film’s integrity in less capable hands, but the youthful actress shows that what she lacks in experience, she more than makes up for with razor sharp articulation, stirring the carefully defined ingredients that grows the movie’s tone with no interruption, even using the spare moments of comedy in ways that could easily be deciphered as consequential threats to Ella’s vulnerable and emotional state over the responsibility of taking over such an important project, days after her Mother’s condition took a turn for the worst.

NEGATIVES

While “Stopmotion” is a delve into the madness of artistic creation and the burden that responsibility entails at a familial level, the script isn’t without issues that momentarily take away from the extensive appeal that this film could’ve had in further outlining the limitless appeal of the genre. In particular, the opening act, with its introduction to many relationships with Ella’s life, are a bit underutilized and underdeveloped in pulling towards such emotional depths, especially that of the Mother, whose conflict is only rendered in two scenes for set-up. I can wholeheartedly understand that Morgan was out to conjure an isolation factor for Ella that plays into the many cryptic actions of her character, but I wish the movie and its limited 88 minute run time took about ten more minutes to tap further into the extent of their abusive plight, especially since her spontaneous medical situation comes with the kind of abrupt impact that dramatically downplays her irreplacable presence on the project’s new direction moving forward. While I did coherently interpret that this was a psychological stranglehold that feels evident since Ella’s childhood, I wish those introductory ingredients were further stirred, especially since they bare relevance to the direction of Ella’s evolution, which eventually mirrors that of her creative captor, as she wallows in a state of victimization. In addition to this, my only other issue with the film pertained to the realities of the mystery itself, which I feel unsubtly gave away too much too quickly, leading to a third act reveal that underwhelmed a bit, especially in the climactic final few images that mirrored what I already knew about the reveal, only forty-five minutes prior. Between the unsubtleties of the dialogue, which sanitize a bit too forcefully throughout the flashback sequences, and the direction of the little girl herself, the script isn’t very good at keeping a long-term secret, and as a result leaves faithful audiences like myself, who hung onto every word throughout compelling actions and reactions, left stalled a bit while Ella and the rest of the film catches up to our preconceived knowledge about just what is going on here.

OVERALL
“Stopmotion” is a grisly and occasionally grotesque look into artistic expression, executed superbly effective by one of its own puppeteers. Though the film drastically undercuts the scope of its psychological conflict with on-the-nose dialogue and limited engagements with Ella’s initial familial plights, it more than pays off for in stimulatingly subversive style and another boldly vulnerable turn from Franciosi, cementing a psycho-surreal descent into the darkest corridors of our mind, where nightmares flourish with fear.

My Grade: 8/10 or B+