Written by: Ryan Dailey
The horror nation lives in a time where if it is not a reboot, prequel or a gender/ race swapped twisted version of a bonafide classic, the film will either A: not get made or B: not be welcomed or viewed as it is not being “palettable.”
Stopmotion is the latter.
The film is excellent. Well written and acted, the type of film that, like Skinamarink, forces the viewer to remain engaged and put on their thinking caps. This is the type of cinema that sticks with the viewer long after the credits roll, forcing either an existential crisis or a serious evaluation of their relationships with other people. How much of your life do you live for yourself and how much of it do you live for other people? Do you love doing what you do because you love doing it, or because you are programmed to do it?
Ella Blake (Aisling Frankciosi) is the daughter of a famous stop motion animator whose health is failing and needs her daughter’s help in finishing her final film. Around the same time that the mother falls to a stroke, Ella is visited by a strange young girl that she has never seen before. The young girl informs Ella that the film her and her mother were working on is “boring,” and convinces Ella to start over with the story of the “Ash Man.”
At this point in the narrative, it becomes very clear that Stopmotion is a tale about how easy it is for art and the creative process to consume the artist from the inside out, marked by Ella’s descent into madness and her physical appearance becoming altered through self-harm and ignoring her hygiene. Anyone that is even mildly creative can relate to at least missing a meal or a shower because the chapter they are writing or the canvas in front of them has taken sole priority in that moment of time.
All of the metaphors and the engaging story are blended with some of the best stop motion animation since Burton or Mad God. Stop motion animation and live action are blended together in ways that are majestic and terrifying at the same time.