The act of creation is difficult. It’s hard enough to bring to life one’s own ideas, but when one was taught, inherited, and directly molded by their parents, it can be hard to break free and figure out one’s own style. Stopmotion uses the type of animation to directly visualize the dynamic– a literal puppet being controlled by a child, a metaphorical puppet, controlled by a parent puppet master, in two different ways– and it’s a unique, brilliant premise made so unsettling with writer-director Robert Morgan’s signature animated style. While the film doesn’t neatly stitch its multiple layers together, Stopmotion is an eerie, chilling debut with original style.
"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."
— Dennis Harvey
Ella Blake, a stop-motion animator struggling to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother, embarks upon the creation of a film that becomes the battleground for her sanity. As Ella’s mind starts to fracture, the characters in her project take on a life of their own.
After her overbearing mother falls comatose, stop-motion animator Ella Blake sets out to continue on her mom’s film, though a meeting with an unusual girl inspires her to make her own.
The stop motion, of course. The way it weaves in with the live action film looks great.
I always found stop motion animated films kinda creepy and now I feel the fear is justified.
