Mad God
Mad God is a 2021 American adult stop-motion-animated film written, produced, and directed by Phil Tippett. Completed in 2021, it was produced over a period of 30 years.
Mad God premiered at the Locarno Festival on August 5, 2021, and was released in the United States by Shudder on June 16, 2022.
Plot
A tall figure shrouded in a jacket and gas mask, credited as the Assassin, descends into a ruined, hellish world via a diving bell. In his possession are a map and a suitcase.Traveling through the underworld, he encounters many creatures mercilessly preyed upon by larger monsters as well as elaborate machines of torture and death. Eventually, he reaches a city which is home to an army of faceless drones, apparently ruled by a monstrosity with filthy teeth and seared flesh who only speaks in baby babble as it is only seen as closeups of its eyes and mouth on screens attached to a tower. Deep within the city's bowels, the Assassin discovers a mountain of suitcases just like his own. He opens his suitcase, revealing a time bomb, which he places and prepares to set off. He fails to notice a creeping monster behind him, which then attacks and drags him away as the bomb's ticking hand appears unable to complete its circuit.
The Assassin is shackled to a table and stripped in front of a mass of spectators watching the silhouette in a theater and laughing. A surgeon appears with a nurse, splits open the Assassin's abdomen, and begins rummaging through his chest cavity. Jewelry and papers are pulled out and thrown to the floor. Eventually, the surgeon finds his goal: a strange, wailing, infant larva-like creature. The surgeon hands it to the nurse, who carries it away.
The surgeon bores a hole in the Assassin's head and connects his brain to a television set. As the surgeon watches the television, the world above is shown, where a man known as the Last Man gives a map forged by gnarled witches to an Assassin and sends him down in a diving bell. Riding a motorcycle and then driving a jeep, the Assassin follows the map through a munitions depot, a graveyard and a war zone before descending a spiral roadway.
Back in the underworld, the nurse brings the infant to a ghostly, floating creature who escorts the child to an alchemist's lair. The alchemist grinds the infant into liquid, then alchemically transforms its remains into gold. This gold is then used to create a new cosmos which undergoes the same cycle of evolution, civilization and self-destruction as the previous one. In doing so, the Assassin's bomb's countdown concludes.
Production
While working on RoboCop 2, Tippett began filming what would become Mad God. His work on Jurassic Park led him to believe the days of stop-motion were over, and the film was shelved.Twenty years later, with the encouragement of members of his studio, Tippett began working on the project again, utilizing crews of volunteers to assist him.
With aid from Kickstarter donations, Tippett created the first three sections, which make up about half of the film. He released a behind-the-scenes footage on YouTube during production.
Sound design
In 2013, Academy Award-winning sound designer Richard Beggs agreed to do the project's sound design and mixing.VR-short
In 2016, a two-minute short VR-version of the movie was released. All characters were animated and shot separately in front of a green screen using Dragon software; then Nuke was used to compose all the characters together in front of a background.Music
The original score was composed by Dan Wool, who started work on the project in 2010 and developed the score in chapters until the release in 2021. The soundtrack album, released by Waxwork Records, was released June 21, 2022 on double-vinyl and CD.In 2023 Wool released an alternative digital-only version of the soundtrack album, "Soundtrack for Phil Tippett's MAD GOD - Music+Effects Version ", incorporating more of Richard Beggs' sound design for MAD GOD. It is available on Bandcamp.
Release
Mad God premiered at the 74th Locarno Film Festival on August 5, 2021. Shudder acquired its distribution rights, planning a limited release in theaters and on AMC+ on June 16, 2022.Reception
Box office
In the United States and Canada, the film earned $8,416 from two theaters in its opening weekend. It expanded to 26 theaters in its second weekend and made $36,588. It added $24,451 in its third weekend, $37,617 in its fourth, and $16,280 in its fifth, ultimately grossing more than double its $150,000 budget in its limited theatrical release.Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Mad God holds an approval rating of 92%, based on 95 reviews, and an average rating of 7.8/10. Its consensus reads, "A rich visual treat for film fans, Mad God proves that even in the age of CGI, the cinematic allure of stop-motion animation remains strong." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 80 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times described the film as "a vivid and valuable showcase for disappearing skills". Carlos Aguilar wrote a profile of Tippett and the production of Mad God – "the most complete expression of his erudite image-making expertise" – in the same publication.
John Defore of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film's animation, bleak atmosphere and design, calling it "a tech achievement FX geeks will need to see", and "among the bleakest dystopias science fiction". Sight and Sounds John Bleasdale offered similar praise while also criticizing its bleak setting, summarizing that the film "has all the makings of an instant cult classic". Scoring the film four out of five stars, Drew Tinnin from Dread Central praised the design, atmosphere and animation, as well as the film's soundtrack, calling it "sheer artistry coming to life".
Rafael Motamayor of IndieWire rated the film a B, writing "Mad God, a cacophony of savagery and cruelty no hope, no respite from the awe-inspiring terror." Nerdist's Kyle Anderson rated the film a score of 4.5 out of 5, offering similar praise to the film's atmosphere, visuals, bleak setting, and production design while noting the film's simplistic narrative. Reviewing for Tilt Magazine, critic Thomas O'Connor called the film "a deeply unsettling spectacle", highlighting the film as a technical achievement in stop-motion animation, as well as praising the film's bleak atmosphere and disturbing imagery.
Christopher Stewardson from Our Culture Magazine rated the film four out of five stars, commending the animation, visual design, hellish atmosphere, and dream-like quality, writing "Mad God almost has an anti-war ring to it. In its abstract madness, it presents the nightmare of what war does. Nobody is human. Only monsters exist".