The beautifully intricate art of stop-motion animation turns grotesquely dark in Robert Morgan's sinister feature debut. Following an April packed full of horror releases in the UK — from Late Night With the Devil to Immaculate and The First Omen — May's relative genre drought comes to an end right on the cusp of June, with Stopmotion coming to Shudder just in time to terrify viewers for summer.
The film follows Ella Blake (Aisling Franciosi), who works in the shadow of her mother Suzanne (Stella Gonet), a famed stop-motion animator. She helps Suzanne with her final production until a stroke hospitalises her and forces her to continue alone. Ella's boyfriend Tom (Tom York) offers for her to move in with him until Suzanne is well again, but she instead chooses to rent a studio apartment by herself to continue the film. There, she meets a mysterious young girl (Caoilinn Springall) who tells her the story of the Ash Man, inspiring Ella to scrap the existing film and begin a brand new one based on his haunting tale. Soon, however, she is plagued with visions of the Ash Man that blur the lines between reality and a living nightmare.
Few films can balance their haunting beauty and grisly horror quite like Stopmotion, with Ella's devastating descent into madness juxtaposed starkly against the magnificent creations she lovingly crafts for her project. The animation within the film is a sight to behold and highlights the amount of artistry that goes into creating stop-motion cinema while also adding to the horror of the overall piece as we learn more about the Ash Man and his terrifying pursuit of Ella through her film.
Stopmotion‘s jumpscares are few and far between, instead focusing on wild, hallucinatory visuals and dark, creepy imagery to create an atmosphere of dread from start to finish. So much is never explicitly said about Ella and her upbringing and relationships, yet everything is explained through subtle hints that instil that anxiety-fuelled atmosphere. When reality is so steeped in trauma, Ella's fabricated world and the excitement and discovery it brings seems enticing, despite its dangers.
Franciosi's performance as Ella is so startlingly strong that it almost becomes painful to watch as Ella becomes increasingly troubled. While the narrative often becomes overwrought with predictable genre tropes, Franciosi's Ella prevents them from stagnating the story. It's impossible not to care for Ella's plight to understand what is happening as the line between art and reality disintegrates, making the bloody final act all the more nail-biting.
A disturbing mediation on creativity, trauma, and mental health, Stopmotion revels in its bleakness and the obsession that comes with creating a masterpiece. Ella's uncomfortable intimacy with her project and the horrors that unfold are simply too terrifying to avert your eyes, and while the film may not be perfect, Morgan has created a unique and visually stunning feature debut that cements his status as a director to watch out for.
Stopmotion comes to Shudder UK on May 31