From The Nightmare Before Christmas to Fantastic Mr. Fox and Shaun the Sheep, stop motion has been a much-beloved style of film. And it wasn’t until I watched the trailer for Stopmotion that I realized that it could be used to create some of the most grotesque and terrifying creations that I’ve seen in a really long time.
Stopmotion tells the story of a stop motion animator who struggles with her own personal demons after the death of her overbearing mother. Those demons seem to cross the bridge between imagination and reality after a mysterious neighbor tells her about this gruesome man no one wants to ever meet, The Ash Man.
In the official trailer for Stopmotion, we get to see some of these demons, and they’re terrifying. These demons come in the form of her own stop motion creations who have open wounds, transparent skin, ripped clothes, and creep about broken homes and dead woods. But after the story of The Ash Man, those creations come after her in the bath, in bed, and knocking at her literal door.
And that little girl and mysterious neighbor…there’s something more about her as if she helped bring these monsters to life. On purpose. That makes it all the more terrifying and makes us look at stop motion with new eyes.
Watch the official trailer here:
Stopmotion is set to hit theaters on February 23, 2024.
Thank you for posting about this. I doubt I would have heard about this film, which is now on my “to watch” list.