Let’s get a little weird.
I knew nothing about this one when I clicked on it and was a bit surprised to see it was an animated film. I suppose I could have read the synopsis, but who has time for that?
I think stop-motion animation is a bit of a dying art. It allows for a surreal and beautiful way to tell stories. Mad God looks great with the animation and designs. There are so many small details in just about every scene that it is a credit to the form.
We follow an explorer as he is dropped into a radioactive and destroyed landscape. It seems like a mix between Lovecraft and cyberpunk with a bit of H.R. Giger for seasoning. The world is off putting but still somehow intoxicating to look at. At least in the still images.
We end up with numerous dark scenes (just about the whole movie) mixed with extreme closeups of the movement. It is somewhat hard to tell what is happening in a lot of it. We also have weird lighting that is often a bit flashy, or just too dark, to fully appreciate what is happening. The brutal monsters seem a bit less threatening when we don’t get to see them in detail.
When the camera slows down long enough for us to truly take in a scene there is a lot to appreciate. I found myself playing hunting for clear images.
The movie wants to be gross and depicts hellish landscapes with gusto. Unfortunately, the scale of things isn’t always clear and mixed with weird lighting choices it can become a bit muddy. The bummer is that if you look up some still shots, you’ll be able to appreciate the effort into the scenes. It just doesn’t translate when things are moving.
I imagine this will gather a bit of a cult following as people will want to dissect the weird imagery for meaning. I think the film is just trying to be weird and creepy. There may be a larger point being made here, but it didn’t reveal itself to me.
Technically impressive but narratively spare. If they would have turned the lights on it might have been a more enjoyable viewing. This one oddly reminds me of Begotten where the cool imagery is often too obfuscated to mean anything.
This one just didn’t work for me at all.
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