Stopmotion (film)

Last updated

Stopmotion
Stopmotion film poster.webp
Official release poster
Directed by Robert Morgan
Written by
  • Robert Morgan
  • Robin King
Produced by
  • Alain de la Mata
  • Christopher Granier-Deferre
Starring
CinematographyLéo Hinstin
Edited byAurora Vögeli
Production
companies
Distributed by IFC Films
(United States)
Release dates
Running time
93 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Box office$804,000 [3] [4]

Stopmotion is a 2023 British live-action/adult animated psychological horror film directed by Robert Morgan in his feature-length debut. Morgan also wrote the script with Robin King. The film stars Aisling Franciosi and combines live action and stop motion animation.

Contents

Stopmotion was released on 23 February 2024.

Plot

Unable to use her hands due to arthritis, stop-motion animator Suzanne Blake enlists her daughter Ella's help in completing her most recent film, often overworking Ella. When Suzanne suffers a stroke and falls comatose, Ella resolves to finish the film on her own.

Ella's boyfriend, Tom, invites her to live with him while Suzanne recovers, but Ella instead chooses to rent a studio apartment to continue finishing the film. She encounters a young girl living in the same building, who curiously asks her about the project. She calls the story “boring” and presents Ella with a different story about a young girl lost in the woods. Ella discards the original project and begins to bring the film to life. The girl visits once more and complains that the figures don't look real enough, insisting to use spoiled steak for the dolls to emulate flesh. Ella hesitantly complies.

The girl continues her vision of the story, stating the young girl is hiding from an entity called “the Ash Man.” Ella forms the figure but the girl denies it, insisting that the Ash Man must be crafted out of "something dead”, so she offers a fox carcass. Ella refuses and the girl consequently pauses the storyline's resumption. Ella asserts she can figure that out on her own, though a creative block ensues and she's out of ideas to continue. Ella asks Tom's sister, Polly, to give her some LSD in the hopes it will inspire new ideas. That night, she hallucinates the Ash Man staring directly at her through her peephole, mirroring a segment from the film. Tom finds her passed out in her apartment, whereupon she realizes that she simply animated the Ash Man approaching the girl's door, and that the acid Polly gave her is still in her pocket untouched. Polly, also an animator, sets Ella up with a job at the studio she works for. Her initial beliefs that she was hired as an animator are squandered when she is told to craft eyeballs, and she figures out Polly has plagiarized her film. Enraged, she destroys the set Polly created.

Desperate, Ella remakes the Ash Man puppet using the fox carcass. The girl resumes the story, stating the Ash Man touches the girl, but Ella uncomfortably refuses to include it, instead deciding that the girl successfully escapes. After experiencing another hallucination of the Ash Man pursuing her, Ella awakens in the hospital with an injured leg. She is visited by Tom, who says her project has gone too far and tells her of his plans to go to her apartment and demolish the set. Ella insists she be the one to do it, and Tom agrees on the condition that he is allowed to watch. Ella then learns that Suzanne has passed away.

Back at her apartment, Ella strangles the girl to death, only for her to reappear unharmed seconds later and comfort Ella as she cries. The girl demands that the Ash Man be remade with something bloodier. Ella removes the stitches on her leg and pulls out a strip of her own muscle. She is discovered by Tom and Polly, who attempt to rush her back to the hospital, but she kills them both and uses their flesh to create life-sized figures of the little girl and the Ash Man. The Ash Man then stalks towards Ella and the girl, who fearfully proclaims that this isn't part of the story. Ella allows the Ash Man to accost her and eat from her face, now made of mortician's wax. Ella then enters a cabin in the forest identical to the one in the film, where the girl is watching footage of Ella bleeding to death on her apartment floor. She tells Ella she loves the film. Ella smiles at her before stepping into a satin-lined box and closing the lid.

Cast

Production

Ahead of the Cannes Film Market in June 2021, Wild Bunch International revealed the project by Robert Morgan, who will make the jump from short films to his directorial debut feature film from a script he wrote with Robin King. Aisling Franciosi was cast as the lead for the film. [1] The film received the fourth largest amount of production funding from the British Film Institute for 2022, at £905,000. [5]

Principal photography began in February 2022, [6] and was completed by April. [7]

Release

Stopmotion had its world premiere at the 2023 Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas on 24 September 2023. [2] It was then screened at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival on 7 October 2023. [8]

The film was released in select theaters in the United States on February 23, 2024 by IFC Films. [9]

Reception

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 90% of 58 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.4/10.The website's consensus reads: "Stopmotion takes the conflict between art and artist to chilling, visually thrilling extremes, distinguished by director Robert Morgan's excellent effects work." [10] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 65 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. [11]

In a positive review, Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting wrote, "When so many filmmakers opt for style over substance, the style is substance here. Morgan surprises with an immersive sensory assault. Art and storytelling collide in breathtaking yet revolting fashion. Morgan's knockout debut opens up the veins of a turbulent artist, delivering one creepy melding of mediums to an unsettling, powerful degree." [12] Variety's Dennis Harvey wrote, "Robert Morgan unquestionably has a knack for the extraordinary; it is both a measure of his talent and of its limits that this debut feature stumbles only when it tries to do something on the ordinary side." [13] The New York Times 's Jeannette Catsoulis said, "Like the art form it celebrates, Stopmotion is careful, patient and almost punishingly focused, with Franciosi bringing the same intensity that made her role in The Nightingale (2019) so devastating." [14]

In a more negative review, Peter Sobczynski of RogerEbert.com wrote, "Although it clearly wants to be seen as some kind of wild hallucinatory exploration into the heart of madness, Stopmotion eventually reveals itself to be little more than a collection of barf-bag visuals and tired conventions that are occasionally enlivened by some nifty animation and the strong performance from Franciosi." [15] Steven Scaife of Slant Magazine wrote, "beyond the methodical scenes of Ella at work, the live-action sequences that dominate the film add little to the lengthy history of horror stories about someone slowly unraveling in isolation... It's as if the film's plot is puppeteered by earlier horror films, and in a similar fashion to the initial scene of Ella dutifully following her mother's instructions." [16]

Accolades

In the main competition at the 2023 Fantastic Fest, Morgan won Best Director for his work on Stopmotion. [17] It was also awarded the Special Jury Award in the Official Fantàstic Selection at the 56th Sitges Film Festival in Catalonia, Spain. [18]

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References

  1. 1 2 Wiseman, Andreas (15 June 2021). "'The Nightingale' Star Aisling Franciosi To Lead Horror 'Stopmotion', Wild Bunch Launches Sales — Cannes Market". Deadline Hollywood . Penske Media Corporation. Archived from the original on 15 June 2021. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
  2. 1 2 "Stopmotion". Fantastic Fest . Archived from the original on 22 September 2023. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  3. ↑ "Stopmotion— Financial Information". The Numbers . Archived from the original on 26 February 2024. Retrieved 18 March 2024.
  4. ↑ "Stopmotion". Box Office Mojo . Archived from the original on 26 February 2024. Retrieved 18 March 2024.
  5. ↑ Tabbara, Mona; Dams, Tim (9 August 2022). "The BFI's 10 biggest production awards for first half of 2022". Screen Daily . Archived from the original on 5 July 2023. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  6. ↑ Harrington, Patrice (16 January 2022). ""I think The Fall put me into the category troubled characters" – actress Aisling Franciosi". Irish Independent . Archived from the original on 23 August 2022. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
  7. ↑ Production dates:
  8. ↑ "Stopmotion". BFI London Film Festival 2023. Archived from the original on 7 December 2023. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  9. ↑ Bolt, Neil (26 January 2024). "Stopmotion Trailer and Poster Debut for Macabre Puppet Horror Movie". Yahoo. Archived from the original on 28 January 2024. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
  10. ↑ "Stopmotion". Rotten Tomatoes . Fandango Media . Retrieved 27 February 2024.
  11. ↑ "Stopmotion". Metacritic . Archived from the original on 23 February 2024. Retrieved 23 February 2024.
  12. ↑ Navarro, Meagan (20 February 2024). "'Stopmotion' Review – An Artist's Descent Through Visceral Horror and Immersive Stop-Motion". Bloody Disgusting . Archived from the original on 22 February 2024. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
  13. ↑ Harvey, Dennis (22 February 2024). "'Stopmotion' Review: Art Infects Rather Than Imitates Life in IFC's Partly Animated Creepshow". Variety. Archived from the original on 23 February 2024. Retrieved 23 March 2024.
  14. ↑ Catsoulis, Jeannette (22 February 2024). "'Stopmotion' Review: Her Dark Materials". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on 24 February 2024. Retrieved 23 March 2024.
  15. ↑ Sobczynski, Peter (23 February 2024). "Stopmotion". RogerEbert.com . Archived from the original on 24 February 2024. Retrieved 24 February 2024.
  16. ↑ Scaife, Steven (18 February 2024). "'Stopmotion' Review: Animating Trauma". Slant Magazine. Archived from the original on 26 February 2024. Retrieved 23 March 2024.
  17. ↑ Taylor, Drew (26 September 2023). "Fantastic Fest 2023 Winners Include Brazilian Thriller 'Property' and Killer Spider Movie 'Infested' (Exclusive)". TheWrap . Archived from the original on 1 October 2023. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  18. ↑ "56th Edition Award Winners | Sitges Film Festival". Sitges Film Festival . 14 October 2023. Archived from the original on 21 October 2023. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
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