Stopmotion

Ella Blake (Aisling Franciosi) works under her demanding mother Suzanne Blake (Stella Gonet) doing their own indie stop-motion animated films. She's doing all the work since her mother is disabled. After her mother suffers a stroke, she encounters a young girl. She creates a new character with usual materials.

I really like some of the ideas in this movie. There are some interesting themes and I really like the creation. It reminds me of Puppet Master with elements of Cronenberg body horror. There is a lot to like, but the overall effect is a slow moving indie horror. Despite the individual ideas, none of them can overcome the general grind of the story telling.

There's nothing "bad" about Stopmotion and I enjoy Aisling Francoisi as a genre actress but there's nothing very interesting or new here. Beyond the cool imagery (which certainly borrows from Dead Ringers and Videodrome) there are 100 other movies with an identical plot and progression and ultimately Stopmotion is just kind-of ends up being a boring and joyless trip down that familiar path.

You could just watch the director's other work to appreciate the macabre art style instead of watching this and probably end up being more satisfied with the viewing experience. I didn't dislike Stopmotion, but it's pretty forgettable.

Creepy? Check. Tense? Check. Realistic and bloody gore? Check. Character development/story building? ((Crickets))

The stop-motion sequences are amazing but still not as great as the sound. The squishes, tears, cuts and breathing kick you into this movie more than anything. The lead dives headfirst into her descent to madness well, but something is still missing.

The cast does well, but the chemistry between them all lacks greatly and their relationships aren't fully fleshed out. It seems as though they could have cut most of the relationship scenes (particularly her partner and his sister) out OR added 20 minutes of additional backstory into them. What I was left with was confusion.

The movie ended and I was a bit confused about how I felt about it, hence a 6/10. It's a tense and unsettling movie.

I'm pretty open to checking out nearly every theatrically-released horror movie. Stopmotion had a limited release, but it looked really creepy so I gave it a chance.

There is definitely a lot of good here. I enjoyed the performance by the lead actress. It's filled with really cool, creepy imagery. And the stop motion stuff was done really well.

Unfortunately, a few things really tanked this movie for me. It did a bad job of keeping me invested and engaged. I was fairly bored for such a short movie. And it leans way too far on the metaphorical side for my liking. I get what they were going for. I just need more than that.

When it ended, I felt fully unsatisfied and a bit annoyed.

(1 viewing, 3/19/2024)

Lately I've heard about this movie multiple times and I was pretty excited to see the result. The premise seemed interesting and I heard that the effects are good, which both turned out to be true. You have a unique premise for the movie that makes it stand out from all the other horror movies that are dumped out nowadays. The effects and especially the gore were also pretty great and had a gritty feeling to it which complemented the movie.

However I feel like this could have been so much more and I was a little let down after I finished watching. The movie has pacing issues and it tries to be way too artsy and pretentious instead of just focusing on its strengths. It's a decent flick but I was hoping for something special and great. [5,7/10]