Mad God
A stop-motion descent into a hellish underworld.
Mad God is a 2021 American adult stop-motion-animated film written, produced, and directed by Phil Tippett. The project took 30 years to complete and was finished in 2021. It debuted at the Locarno Festival on August 5, 2021, and Shudder released it in the United States on June 16, 2022.
The story follows a figure known as the Assassin, who wears a jacket and gas mask and descends into a ruined, hellish underworld inside a diving bell, carrying a map and a briefcase. He travels through this world, witnessing creatures being preyed upon by larger monsters and encountering elaborate torture machines. He reaches a city inhabited by faceless drones, ruled by a monstrous being with filthy teeth and burned flesh that communicates only in baby babble, seen only as close-ups of its eyes and mouth on screens attached to a tower. Deep in the city, the Assassin finds a mountain of identical briefcases. He opens his own to reveal a time bomb, which he sets, but a creeping monster attacks and drags him away before the bomb’s ticking hand can complete its circuit.
The Assassin is shackled, skinned before a laughing theater audience, and then operated on by a surgeon and nurse. The surgeon opens his abdomen, pulls out jewelry and papers, and extracts a wailing infant larva-like creature, which the nurse carries away. The surgeon then bores a hole in the Assassin’s head, connecting his brain to a television. The screen shows the world above: a man called the Last Man, warden of a Gulag for Nazi POWs, puts on a yarmulka, receives a map from gnarled witches, and gives it to the Assassin, who then descends into hell in a diving bell. The Assassin rides a motorcycle and a Volkswagen Kübelwagen, following the map through millennia of carnage, a munitions depot, a graveyard, a war zone, and a spiral roadway symbolizing human DNA.
Back in the underworld, the nurse brings the infant to a ghostly, floating creature in Plague Doctor garb, who takes it to an alchemist. The alchemist grinds the infant into powder and alchemically transforms it into gold. This gold is used to create a new cosmos, which undergoes the same cycle of evolution, civilization, and self-destruction as the previous one. As this happens, the Assassin’s bomb countdown concludes.
Tippett began filming *Mad God* while working on *RoboCop 2*. His experience on *Jurassic Park* convinced him stop-motion was obsole
- Release year
- 2021
- Director
- Phil Tippett
- Country
- United States
- Genre
- Adult stop-motion-animated film
- Runtime
- Not specified in article
- Budget
- $150,000
- Box office
- Grossed more than double its $150,000 budget in limited theatrical release
Lore & Background
The film follows a figure known as the Assassin, who descends into a ruined, hellish world via a diving bell. He travels through an underworld of monstrous creatures and torture machines, eventually reaching a city of faceless drones ruled by a baby-babbling monstrosity. Deep within the city, he discovers a mountain of briefcases like his own, which contains a time bomb. He is attacked and dragged away before the bomb can be set off. The Assassin is later skinned and operated on; a surgeon extracts a wailing infant larva-like creature from his chest. The infant is ground into powder by an alchemist, transformed into gold, and used to create a new cosmos that undergoes the same cycle of evolution and self-destruction, completing the bomb's countdown.
Reader's Guide
Mad God is significant as a decades-long labor of love by Phil Tippett, a stop-motion veteran whose work on Jurassic Park led him to believe the medium was obsolete. The film was started during RoboCop 2, shelved for twenty years, then revived with volunteer crews and Kickstarter donations. Its sound design was handled by Academy Award-winning Richard Beggs, and its score by Dan Wool. The film received critical acclaim, with a 92% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 80, praised for its visual artistry and bleak atmosphere. It grossed more than double its $150,000 budget in limited release, and a two-minute VR version was released in 2016. The film stands as a testament to the enduring craft of stop-motion animation in the age of CGI.
Did You Know?
- The film was produced over a period of 30 years, starting during work on RoboCop 2.
- A two-minute VR version of the movie was released in 2016.
- The soundtrack album was released by Waxwork Records on June 21, 2022 on double-vinyl and CD.
- The film earned $8,416 from two theaters in its opening weekend in the United States and Canada.
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