The art of animation and filming a stop-motion feature is hard work. It could take days, months, even years to finish the shortest of stop-motion films. For some artists, this is second-nature, where those days and months spent clicking the camera each time a clay-made character is moved a fraction of a millimeter, will only seem like minutes have passed – but, one can only wonder if such an art can take a toll on the mental health of its creator.
Entering within the frames is Stopmotion; a Psychological Horror movie released by IFC Films on February 23, 2024 to Shudder and select theaters. It is also a movie coincidentally written and directed by a master stop-motion artist, Robert Morgan (Bobby Yeah 2011, ABC’s Of Death 2 2014), who makes his first full-length feature debut.
Stopmotion stars also the heavy-hitting Aisling Franciosi (The Nightingale 2018, Last Voyage Of The Demeter 2023) as Ella Blake, an aspiring stop-motion artist stuck in a realm of doom and gloom. Ella’s mother, Suzanne, is a well-known stop-motion director trying to finish her last film, doing so with the help of her daughter Ella, since sudden ailments have gotten the best of her. After Suzanne is suddenly hospitalized, it is up to her daughter Ella to finish the final film – forcing Ella to face a ton of new challenges along the way.
And while Stopmotion combines creepy vibes, dark chills, and an outside look at a stop-motion artist at work – the movie unfortunately falls flat, on many levels. Anyone can pick apart a movie from the couch within a decrepit basement apartment, or from a dining table at where a laptop lay upon a table-mat next to a bowl of random chocolates and a bag of cool-ranch potato chips, but here, the picking apart is mere outside, constructive criticism, conducted by a lone, hopeful movie-reviewer, who is probably sitting at said dining table, elbowing the bag of potato chips, fighting for more writing room.
In the case of movie-making, the idea of getting to know the characters a little more helps boost the context of the story: Stopmotion kind of just throws characters at you, hoping for the best. You will soon pick up that Ella never has any story ideas, nor does she have a voice of her own, nor will the audience ever truly know the reason for this as well.
Things get weird when Ella decides to make her own movie instead of finishing her mother’s project after being visited by an unnamed, little girl (Caoilinn Springall: The Midnight Sky 2020, Citadel series) – a little girl with big ideas for Ella’s new project, no less. Who is this little girl? Why is she all up in Ella’s business? Why is Ella taking orders and ideas from the little girl in the first place? The little girl is significant, yes, but no one will really know why. However, this could also be on purpose, as Morgan may want the audience to speculate on the characters’ backgrounds – but that statement is also just speculation (insert pun-laughter). There are also scenes throughout Stopmotion of aimless camera angles capturing never the point, and scenes which can go on for a lengthened amount of time, but for no real reason. And, for the trendies – the movie is a true slow burn, in so much the audience may want to utilize the fast-forward feature on a remote-controller every so often.
But, even while mentioning all of these negatives, Stopmotion has plenty of positives, which very much outweigh the cons. For instance, each and every scene contains killer acting chops, from the likes of the entire cast – including Stella Gonet, who will give the audience the heebie-jeebies with her on-point, moody, bitter, ailing-mother performance. Additionally, a scene with Suzanne telling Ella “not to move” will stay with you long after it ends.
There is also the very underrated Tom York (Olympus series, Poldark series), providing a sweet, nurturing boyfriend to Ella, and the one having to deal with Ella’s moody, gloomy, and very questionable behavior as she dives deeper and deeper into her story. York is very convincing as a well-rounded guy, wanting to always be by his girl’s side – but, unfortunately, he also becomes a good character wasted at the hands of a useless, and very senseless, cannon-fodder death.
The interesting thing about Stopmotion is the movie gives Robert Morgan an excuse to do what he does best: animate a stop-motion picture – doing so – within the actual movie. Morgan does this whenever Ella and “little girl” continue making their movie. You get to watch the outcome of each scene as creepy, wax-made characters come to life on the big-screen telling a story within a story – and sometimes, these characters come to life whenever Ella has a ‘bad dream.’
Overall, Stopmotion has its pros and cons, and it definitely has its head-scratching moments; this includes an unneeded, fake-out drug scene. It also has the doom ‘n’ gloom atmosphere, a cast of many good actors, a wonderfully-creepy movie-within-a-movie vibe, plus the blood and soul of the people who gave a damn in making Stopmotion come to life. There is plenty of room for speculating the hidden meaning of the movie. It could be that some people feel like they are puppets, or characters, rather, stuck in someone else’s movie, never fully in control of their own lives.
Nonetheless, for all that it is worth, the true underlying message of Stopmotion is to never give up on making a dream come true; no matter how long it takes, nor how many mistakes are made along the way. For these reasons, Cryptic Rock gives Stopmotion 2.5 out of 5 stars.
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