Mad God is a film that is easy to recommend since it has something for everyone: it is a stop motion animation; an ambitious personal project over thirty years in the making; a gross horror film; a shining example of pure visual storytelling; a particularly squelchy take on dystopia; and rich with damning anti-capitalist themes. So in theory, anyone can get something out of this film. How many of those people would actually enjoy the film is a different thing altogether. As Guillermo del Toro comments at the beginning of his audio commentary with the writer and director, Phil Tippet, it is a film that happens to you, throwing you into an oppressive experience, leaving you, like its protagonist, to wander through an utterly depraved and cruel world.
The tone is set with the pre-credits opening scroll quoting a passage from Leviticus of God’s threats to humanity if they disobey his words, which include “I will make the land desolate so that your enemies who settle it shall be appalled by it.” That text makes up the majority of words used in the film with little dialogue used. Instead, the narrative is driven by the visuals: we begin watching a figure being lowered into an industrial landscape dominated by an imposing tower, from which enormous turrets are firing upon him. But that is not our protagonist’s immediate concern as they are lowered deeper and deeper into the ground, past skeletons and stone effigies, deeper and deeper into the depths of a world where monsters mutilate each other, with only a map that is increasingly falling apart to guide them.
The film similarly provides little to guide us as viewers with the focus shifting onto numerous characters, probing into different areas of this strange world. To me, this was no more of a problem than it is in something like 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I feel Mad God is the equivalent of for the horror genre with very clear similarities in their final acts. The comparatively short running time (less than ninety minutes) means that Mad God is less ponderous in comparison which results in an onslaught of images including but by no means limited to scurrying sentient reptiles; baby babbling through fascistic PA systems; woollen people literally falling apart at the seams; towers made from piles of abandoned suitcases; bulging eyes of torture victims; card playing shrimps; nuclear explosions; and even a minotaur.
Listing these strange images like that gives the impression that this is a film made of bits, stitched together at random, so it should be stressed that when watching the film, as wild and gross as it gets, it is always clear that the film as a whole is a singular vision. There are visual touchpoints like Ray Harryhausen and Hieronymus Bosch in there, but this is Phil Tippett’s vision through and through. The cast and crew he assembled across the years get their own commentary and provide more depth and information than are available on the slight supplements. However, the short interviews with Tippett on influences and inspirations and the two-part behind-the-scenes documentaries by his daughter Maya Tippet emphasise how much passion and enthusiasm was poured into the project through these brief glimpses of the crew at work. As with the film itself, visual storytelling is the primary source of information, where not much is verbally explained, and simply being able to see these talented artists at work reveals so much – the care, the attention to detail, the patience. A behind-the-scenes montage of them filming the final shots epitomises the value of this approach rather than the typical talking heads.
For such a long-term passion project to be preserved in this way cannot be underestimated. One of the less visceral yet prominent and ominous images in the film is of a ticking clock, a sign that everything ends eventually and nothing lasts.
But this is not a case of style over substance or admiration rather than engagement, Mad God is rich with meaning which I could write on forever, but I’ll restrain myself to some of the core aspects. The use of scale illustrates the power dynamics of this world, where the big can easily and carelessly crush the small. Our protagonist is not exempt from this rule, crushing smaller creatures underfoot on his journey, before facing the wrath of those bigger than himself. It simply but effectively conveys the severe levels of exploitation that forms the messy and cruel foundations upon which the grand tower we briefly see in the beginning is built. The gory and sometimes hilarious accidental deaths that happen throughout the film are made useful within this system; it all serves the literal and systemic machine.
Tippett comments that the film “got heavier and more grotesque as it went on” and never is this made clearer than his description of the childhood dream that partly inspired the film. Tippett describes seeing a gigantic dark being lurking behind a screen – “its intentions were very bad,” but “instead of running away, I imagined that what I had to do to confront the demon was to be worse than the demon.” This displacement of horror onto a scared child facing up against a horrible demon carries into the film because for all of the gore and bodily fluids, more horrifying is the passivity in letting all this shit happen.
The figure who initially brings us into this world may be called The Assassin, but their role in the film is primarily as an observer, looking upon this monstrous world and accepting it. The film repeats this voyeuristic imagery throughout: we watch murders through a window and are positioned within a cackling audience watching a dismemberment through a theatrical gauze. There are many close-ups of eyes, real and animated, looking out at us as if they are begging. There’s a degree where we are made complicit in allowing this horrifying machine to continue, repetitively, with no end in sight. But there is a humour and plenty of spectacle to balance out the nihilism to avoid the film being a slog and allow space to consider the complex themes being presented to us.
To finish, it is interesting to note how physical releases of films initially only on streaming services like Shudder have become a more pressing concern following the controversy around HBO Max and Warner Bros.’s handling of Batgirl and their animated shows. The power of preservation through physical release has never been more crucial and this release is a great example. On the one hand, it allows award-winning filmmaker del Toro to champion the film’s importance and his commentary with Tippett is best summarised with the moment when he just listens to Tippett talking and repeatedly and breathlessly exclaims, “wow”. On the other hand, we have the illuminating featurette on the relationship formed between Tippett’s production studio and the Academy of Art University that led to students working on shots that ended up in the finished film.
In this single release, we can see the power of cinema, in its feature content and the supplements accompanying it, and even just in its existence as physical media. For such a long-term passion project to be preserved in this way cannot be underestimated. One of the less visceral yet prominent and ominous images in the film is of a ticking clock, a sign that everything ends eventually and nothing lasts. This release serves as a refutation to that, both in the film’s narrative of persistence in spite of suffering and its mere existence as a stop-motion film in a genre that constantly has to justify itself. This may not be a film for everyone, but it is a film we need and should treasure.
MAD GOD IS OUT NOW ON ACORN DVD & BLU-RAY
YOU CAN ALSO WATCH MAD GOD ON SHUDDER
