The thing about stop-motion animation is the inherent absence. It's a medium propelled by ghosts -- the invisible hands that sweep in in between each frame and move what we do see that infentesimal amount to fake a sense of movement. It's a medium that forces us to contemplate the space outside of time -- who knows what happened in between the crook of an elbow, the side-glance of an eye? Entire generations could pass -- a mother could begin opening a door and her daughter could be the one to finish it. That vacuum thrums in the ears of Stopmotion, writer-director Robert Morgan's feature horror debut out this weekend, which purposefully obfuscates the space between its creators and creations -- Aisling Franciosi (from The Nightingale) plays Ella, the daughter of a legendary stop-motion animator artist whose ill health forces her daughter to be her hands for her.
As her mother gets sicker Ella's mental health seems to fall into its own disrepair, with the little dioramas where their creations live making their way outward, upward, breaking right through that fourth wall. Having lived in her mother's immense shadow for so long Ella has no faith in her own abilities, and she begins taking story ideas from the weird little girl who lives down the hall... and if there's anything you never wanna do in a horror movie it's start listening to the weird little girl down the hall. Soon the blending of mediums, like a wetter, more tactile Roger Rabbit, becomes the nightmare itself, where flesh and clay begins gets too amorphous for anybody's good. Reminiscent of my beloved Paperhouse, Stopmotion is all about a disturbed imagination becoming loosed from its page, and it's unsettling as all get out. Point being seek this nasty little sucker out.
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2 comments:
I am traumatized by the trailer. So...that's a yes?
Looked at the production crew to see if the Quay brothers were involved making the stop motion parts. Looks a lot like their stuff.
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