An obsessive artist loses her grasp on where the work ends and reality begins. It’s a tale we’ve seen a thousand times before in horror, yet director Robert Morgan finds a way to make it new in Stopmotion, his striking feature debut, which had its New York premiere at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival this week.
The artist in question is Ella Blake (Aisling Franciosi, recently seen in The Last Voyage of the Demeter), a talented stop-motion animator living in the shadow of her mother, Suzanne (Stella Gonet), whose own animations are legendary. As Suzanne’s arthritis has worsened, she’s enlisted the help of Ella’s nimble young fingers to take care of her and continue her work, controlling Ella’s movements down to a fraction of a millimeter with harsh words and clever manipulation tactics.
It’s clear that Ella yearns to pursue her own creative vision, but she struggles to break free of her mother’s grasp. That is, until a chance encounter with a little girl (Caoilinn Springall) spurs a frenzied late-night creative session that marks the beginning of the end for the troubled artist.
A Nightmare Spills Out Into Reality
Morgan is known for his stop-motion shorts, including the “D is for Deloused” segment of ABCs of Death 2. If you’ve seen that, you’ll know the grotesque creations that soon begin taking over Ella’s life.
Leveraging increasingly morbid materials — mortician’s wax, ash, and worse to come — Ella and the mysterious child set about bringing to life the story of a girl lost in the woods and pursued by the sinister “Ashman.” Designed by Dan Martin, these puppets are a far cry from the delicate felt creations of Ella’s mother.
Of course, it isn’t long before their nightmare world starts bleeding into Ella’s reality, giving Morgan and co-writer Robin King the opportunity to weave stop-motion elements into the script in creative and unexpected ways. The film we see on Ella’s monitor is as beautiful as it is unsettling, but what’s unfolding behind the camera is truly disturbing.
Stop-Motion and Live Action Blend Seamlessly
The make-up, lighting, and sound design all come together in Stopmotion to further blur the line between person and puppet. Ella’s skin takes on a sickly, waxy appearance. Her movements start to creak as if her bones and ligaments have been replaced by the metal armatures she constructs her puppets around. Beyond signaling Ella’s psychological decline, these choices help us see the world through the eyes of someone so immersed in her art that it takes over everything she sees. Finishing the work becomes paramount, just as it was to her mother. The woman’s grasp on her might have loosened, but Ella is no more in control of herself now than when she was mummy’s glorified puppet.
Is it the untamed force of her own creative drive, once repressed, that’s taken over her hands and mind, or has the trauma of living under her mother’s thumb driven Ella to madness? The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Madness and genius are often two sides of the same coin, after all, and Morgan and King’s script is perfectly content to leave us ruminating on that.
With Stopmotion, Morgan Proves His Feature-Length and Live-Action Chops
It takes patience and precision to master stop-motion animation, and that level of care and attention is obvious in Morgan’s foray into live-action features. Stopmotion is a film that lets viewers stew in discomfort, lingering on Ella’s fingers as they probe around in bloody wounds and holding on to her face as her cheerful facade crumbles to reveal deep-rooted foundations of self-doubt and unhappiness.
Franciosi’s performance is as meticulous as her character’s work, adding layers of complexity to Ella’s character as she struggles to find her own voice, escape her mother’s shadow, and avoid succumbing to the lure of well-paying corporate gigs. She’s an easy character to root for, despite her myriad of flaws, and that’s what makes her inevitable downfall so difficult to watch.
But watch you will. Morgan’s assured direction glues us to our seats as the tragedy unfolds in front of our eyes, culminating in a breathless and bloody third act that we’re powerless to look away from. Ella might be a puppet, but so are we in Morgan’s hands. He has our strings clutched tightly in his fist until Stopmotion’s end credits roll.