The Big Picture

Stopmotion
is a unique horror film that blends stop-motion animation with a dark narrative.
Aisling Franciosi’s performance as Ella adds depth and humanity to the chilling story.
The film explores the blurred lines between reality and artistry, culminating in a violent yet mesmerizing finale.

Though horror is often a place to discover movies that you’ve never seen before, it is hard to think of one that is quite like Robert Morgan’s intriguing feature debut Stopmotion. Namely, this is because it draws upon the beauty of stop-motion animation to create something frequently terrifying. While there have certainly been prior works that make use of this technique to explore horror elements, whether it is the magnificent descent into darkness Mad God or the underrated more family-friendly flick Wendell & Wild, this one feels truly original in its presentation. Even as its narrative can be a bit derivative and familiar, the hand-crafted artistry on display is undeniable. Merge it with a spectacular performance from the great Aisling Franciosi, and you’ve got a darkly delightful yet still sinister work of horror.

Stopmotion (2024) A stop-motion animator struggles to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother.Release Date September 24, 2023 Director Robert Morgan Runtime 93 minutes Writers Robin King , Robert Morgan

What Is ‘Stopmotion’ About?

This all begins with the talented stop-motion filmmaker Ella Blake (Franciosi) who is working on a project for her ailing mother Suzanne (Stella Gonet) as she can’t do so herself. The stress of having the menacing matriarch looking over her shoulder, directing and critiquing her every move, is exhausting for both of them. Considering how intensive and tedious stop-motion already is, the way Suzanne puts pressure on her daughter makes it almost unbearable. Whether this comes out of fear that she will never be able to make something herself or something darker is something Stopmotion frequently alludes to without fully diving headfirst into it. When Suzanne has a medical episode in the middle of one of their days of shooting and falls into a coma, Ella now has a chance to make a stop-motion film of her own. She then moves into an apartment to focus all of her time on her work. However, the building seems almost abandoned. That is, save for one little girl (Caoilinn Springall) who begins helping Ella with the story that she is struggling with. As she begins to use…let’s just say other materials for the project that she finds to be rather useful, the film and her own life start to blur together. With each segment of the grim stop-motion creation she makes, it feels like the Ella who started it may be at risk of being locked away in the story she’s creating.

Initially, there is something liberatory to the experience as she no longer has to contend with her mother being there controlling her every move. The blunt reading of this is that it was Ella who was more of a puppet than anything. What makes this work is that, rather crucially, Morgan and his co-writer Robin King don’t go for easy metaphors about trauma. For what is essentially the entirety of the film, Ella seems to be dealing with some sort of greater pain that she is never quite able to articulate. It is as if she is trying to speak through the film that she is working on, but doesn’t quite know how to. She struggles with the story, though seems to work best when doing so subconsciously, as the darker ideas and imagery come pouring out. Stopmotion is best when we are watching these stop-motion bits as they are both well-constructed and generally creepy. The excellent use of sound, more than some on-the-nose dialogue that is scattered throughout, speaks volumes about what this film is becoming.

When they bleed into the real world, with one striking sequence seeing Ella briefly become one of her creations while running from a figure that is chasing her down, Stopmotion delicately taps into something disquieting. It feels most in conversation with something like 2021’s Censor in terms of how it observes someone starting to lose their grasp on the line between the artifice of cinema and what is going on in the making of it. Though it isn’t always as confident in how it does this, too frequently cutting away rather abruptly rather than lingering in the fear, moments like a scene where Ella is frozen with fear on a bed cuts right to the bone.

Aisling Franciosi Is Spectacular In ‘Stopmotion’
Image via IFC

Just as importantly, the central performance from Franciosi is what helps give the story a more cutting edge. Seeing her go from being the reserved daughter trying to quietly do right by her mother to someone creating for herself, no matter the cost to herself or others, is just as frequently brilliant to behold as the stop-motion creations. This should come as no surprise to all who’ve seen Franciosi in Jennifer Kent’s staggering The Nightingale, but it also is nice to see her being given more to work with after being wasted in last year’s The Voyage of the Last Demeter. Just as the conclusion of the film worms its way into your mind in an often terrifying fashion, it is her performance that maintains its hold over your heart. For all the ways Ella is getting lost in her creations, Franciosi never does. She gives the character a real humanity just as we feel her grasp on it slipping away the longer she spends throwing herself into her art.

The film doesn’t skimp on the blood and violence in the finale, with Morgan pushing it as far as he can, but Franciosi remains just as much a force to reckon with. Even a simple scene in a hospital where her face takes on a more sinister expression as she delivers a cathartically cruel line with relish is mesmerizing. Immediately following this, when Ella says she is the one who needs to end this, we feel just how true this is in Franciosi’s voice. That the final shot lingering on her face is where it leaves its greatest impact proves quite poetically fitting. In the end, Ella may be at risk of being swallowed up by her art, yet it is Franciosi who gives it shape and form to provide it with one final blow before it all comes to a painful close.

Stopmotion (2024) REVIEWStopmotion is a one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted horror film with a great performance from Aisling Franciosi. ProsThe stop-motion sequences are all beautifully well-made even as they lean into increasing depths of brutality.Aisling Franciosi is as great as ever, holding the heart of the film in her hands with ease.The ending ties this all together, lingering when it counts on the film’s most quietly haunting shot. ConsElements of the story are a little familiar and blunt in the beginning.It frequently lacks confidence, cutting away in moments where the fear could be let linger for a bit longer.

Stopmotion is in theaters in the U.S. starting February 23. Click below for showtimes.

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