I'm dying to read other reviews of Mad God to see what on Earth other people have made of it. First though I need to write my own review without being contaminated by anyone else's thoughts. Mad God is a stop motion biomechanical nightmare that was thirty years in the making, written and directed by Phil Tippett (who has worked on visual effects for such films as the Robocop trilogy, Star Wars, Jurassic Park and The Twilight Saga). Over the years parts of this have been released as short films, but now the eighty three minute movie has been released in full. While undoubtedly impressive looking, I couldn't help but wish there had been more of a cohesive story.
Beginning with a biblical quote about God damning humankind, we then follow a masked man as he descends on a lift through a hellscape, this makes much of the first five minutes or so. This man, with the aid of a cryptic map, then heads off on his mysterious mission, journeying ever deeper into the nightmare world of wanton death and cruelty. This is just one part of a greater whole, with the many sights and experiences the man discovers leading to their own little stories playing out.
You cannot argue that Mad God is very visually striking. That this took thirty years to complete I'm not surprised. The world of the film is rammed with detail and movement. There are many different parts to this with the man's journey only the beginning. There are industrial nightmare sequences in which faceless humanoids work in vast factory settings where life is extremely cheap. There are more organic sequences involving small creatures that ooze fluids and feast on maggots and each other. There is even a sequence that plays out within a TV screen, showing just where the masked man originated from. All of this is achieved mainly with stop motion effects, though on occasion real actors are inserted into the madness, notably Alex Cox (credited as 'Last Man') and Niketa Roman (credited as 'Nurse, Witch'). The way this decaying world seems to be in a perpetual death cycle with itself I took as a view on humankind as a whole, all these societies already exist from before you were born and will continue no doubt long after you have passed.
Due to the stop motion, and the complete lack of any dialogue whatsoever, this felt at time a bit arthouse, like what was being shown to the viewer was all metaphor and allergy for something greater. A part for instance where a man feeds some humanoid creatures in a tank, then releases a deadly spider type monster into it which proceeds to eat one of them. I saw that perhaps as a metaphor for a God creating all animals as part of the food chain. In my personal life at the time of writing I'm not in a great place currently, a film as cold and uncaring as this one was perhaps not the wisest choice. The film felt pure nightmare fuel, with no hope or happiness to be found anywhere, that includes what appeared to be the protagonist character. It was the sudden ending of that particular story that left me floundering, going forward I was trying to search for a cohesive narrative hook to reign me back in to some semblance of order but instead it was all chaotic horrors, organised in its own way to some sort of biomechanical workings of a clock. All happening for a reason surely, yet the many moving parts bewildering to watch. Mad God was not at all boring, there was a huge amount of variety to be found here, the design of the world horrific. The protagonist for instance seemed regular sized, but came across characters tiny in comparison, as well as gigantic in comparison. At points he appears to be in a rational place, ruined buildings, a huge tank battle he drives though, at other points the masked man feels like he is in a world not designed for him, such as a corridor full of giants sitting on chairs getting electrocuted that he walks through.
Mad God was an impressively created film, something that was very unique. I appreciated massively the amount of work that must have gone into creating this marvel, yet for me, without seeming to have much of a story I was left feeling a little exhausted, glad that I had survived the ordeal by the time the end credits rolled. This is currently streaming on Shudder, check it out for yourself if you want something that is really different to the norm. Love it or hate it, it really will leave an impression regardless.
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