Film Review — Mad God
★★★★☆ Phil Tippett’s magnum opus is a gruelling, gag-worthy work of genius
Armed with a map and suitcase, a masked figure descends into a hellish underworld of unimaginable horror.
The story goes something like this. Hired by Steven Spielberg for Jurassic Park in 1993, stop-motion master Phil Tippett saw the future of visual effects. Realising his brand of animation was doomed for extinction, Tippett promptly retrained in digital, abandoning several projects in the process.
Three decades, a successful Kickstarter campaign, and a mental breakdown later, one of those projects has finally been unleashed. Mad God is honestly unlike anything I have ever seen. Freed from the shackles of traditional narrative and seemingly uncaring about the censors, Tippett has delivered something that is almost impossible to surmise.
But that’s not going to stop me from trying. Think Wallace and Gromit’s A Grand Day Out, but it’s actually hell.
The Mad God is Tippett himself, his laboured nightmare an uncomfortable meditation on humankind’s foul excess and destructive nature. The slime, bile, blood, and fermented shit is smeared into every crevice of this bloated, rotting and utterly ruined world that, thanks to his throwback style, is harrowingly tangible. It’s a complete slog, but it’s also beautiful in a demented sort of way.
Experimental and incredibly cynical, this won’t be for everyone. Definitely don’t watch it with your mum. However, if you care for the art of filmmaking or, like me, miss the days when visual effects actually felt like a craft, this is a film that demands your attention.
A staggering technical feat, well worth the effort and the wait. Thank you, Phil.
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