"Mad God" Delivers Masterful Animation and Appalling, Mesmerising Gore

From special effects guru Phil Tippett comes an out-of-this-world, immaculately-blended hybrid film combining Tippett’s extensive experience in live-action, stop-motion, and animation filmmaking. Tippett’s had his hand in many high-profile and many precedent-inducing, special-effects heavy films such as Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, RoboCop (1, 2, and 3), and even the Twilight Saga (New Moon through Breaking Dawn Part 2).

For over 30 years, Tippett has written, directed, shot, and animated Mad God as a self-funded passion project. In a genuinely precedent-setting film, Tippett has managed to reflect, document, and implement an entire agenda-setting career in special effects and animation while simultaneously raising the bar and showing the special-effects world why and how he’s one of the best.

There’s a lot to unpack in the dialogue-lacking plot. Relying on visuals, Mad God weaves questions and answers, both poetically and technically, into an ever-evolving plot of oppression and horror. Disgusting and perverted, the film slowly entrances the viewer into a sense of can’t-look-away horror that (somehow) never seems to cross a line but stuns and confounds the viewer to search for meaning and reason in an almost allegorical poem.

Mad God is, evidently, a challenging film to describe. The natural reaction after the credits begin to roll is What did I just watch? How did I finish it? And I liked it? The knee-jerk reaction is to say, This is disgusting; I don’t know to describe it; I didn’t like it. However, just because the film is disturbing doesn’t mean one can’t also enjoy it.

There’s much to enjoy. The visuals are meticulously crafted and shot in such a way as to keep the audience engaged. The weaving in, out, and between live-action and stop-motion is beautifully, disgustingly mesmerizing, keeping the mind guessing. Your brain is not matrixing. You're watching the skill of an experienced, innovative, and masterful filmmaker. For all the film’s skillful integration of filmmaking, the effect remains smoke and mirrors, enticing and elusive simultaneously.

Mad God can be viewed and enjoyed with a healthy orientation around how the film lives within a technical, meta-theatrical context of filmmaking, skill, and legacy for a director who has been a pioneer in his field. Mad God is playing in select theatres, with limited screenings, across the United States this summer. The film is also available for streaming through Shudder, an add-on available through streaming services such as Amazon Prime and YouTube TV. If you do not have a vested interest in filmmaking, cinema history, or horror, do not attempt to watch this film – you’ll only ruin the conversation for those who can contextualize the merits of a film like Mad God...if there is even anything else like it.