For former Academy Award-winner Phil Tippett, the animated horror Mad God is thirty years in the making.
The special effects master took a break from this film to work on the original Jurassic Park. Since that film, he really busy with visual effects for films like DragonHeart, Starship Troopers, The Haunting, and The Twilight Saga movies. Of course, he did win an Academy Award for Jurassic Park for special effects along with two Oscar nominations for Starship Troopers and DragonHeart.
Thanks to the pandemic, he was able to return to his personal project Mad God after directing three short films to get to a full-length feature film. He brought in a new team to help him complete the project and the animated film captured the attention of horror lovers.
So far, what we know is that the setting for the adult-themed stop-motion animation is set in a Miltoneque world of monsters, mad scientists, and warpigs. It was described that the story unfolds as if “viewed through the lens of Hieronymous Bosch crossed with Buster Keaton.”
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There are very few stop-motion animation studios as this type of filmmaking started to die out with Will Vinton Studios (now it became LAIKA). With Phil Tippett, he is one of those stop-motion animators spawned from the 1970s along with Will Vinton. After all, he was brought on to do the stop-motion animation for the chess scene in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. Not to mention, he is still one of the most sought-after animators even currently working on The Mandalorian.
If he captured the attention of horror master storyteller Guillermo del Toro, then Mad God should be on every horror aficionado’s radar. It may be too weird and the content is way out there—as apparent with the “Shit Men” portrayed in the movie.
Nonetheless, you should check out the trailer to make your determination.
The film makes its premiere at the Locarno Film Festival on August 5th.
Watch the teaser trailer. Let us know what you think of it.
Source: Phil Tippett