On a mission to go behind enemy lines to detonate a bomb, an assassin is sent into an apocalyptic and torturous hellscape in a diving bell-like craft.  As the journey comes closer to completion, the horrors witnessed grow greater, but ultimately, the assassin is captured, and the mission is cut short.  His master, not to be stopped, sends down another assassin to carry out the bombing. 

Mad God is a stop-motion passion project for Phil Tippett which took some thirty years to produce.  After a theatrical run from IFC Midnight, the film, chock full of gross-out imagery that leans into some of the nastier design elements that can be achieved through the freedom of animation, found a home on Shudder, who gave the film its widest release on the digital platform.  Dan Wool provides the score which fits incredibly well with the overall tone of the film while not being so heavy as to bog the whole thing down.  Mad God, with the exception of some scenes late in the 83-minute film, is very oppressive.  Everything is muddy and wet, an absolute trash pit vision of the future, and Wool’s score walks a perfect line of sounding both from this universe and helps to add layers of tone that the otherwise caustic imagery cannot convey. 

One of the most unique things about Mad God is how the film handles the scale of its characters and the world around them.  The assassin at first appears to be a tiny being sent down into a world of giants, but as he begins to traverse the hellscape, we realize that there are beings much smaller than the assassin is, and he crushes them unaware and underfoot.  Later, however, the assassin walks through a valley of giants being electrocuted and the stranger in a strange land is barely taller than their toes that stomp and bring about waves of mud as the electricity courses through their enormous bodies.  It is all deeply unsettling as we never quite get a strong grasp of the physics of this world because of it.  It was a deeply purposeful choice, to be sure, and it continually pays off throughout the film as it creates a sense of danger in every frame.  

The convection of the plot is one of the most difficult things about the film.  To force out a summary, it appears to be a modern-day interpretation of Dante’s Inferno in which the assassin passes through the toil and destruction that man has brought upon himself – or rather, the powers above him have levied through their greed – but it is hard to connect the visuals into a fully formed narrative as the film is devoid of any dialogue.  The only audio besides the score is the sound design; lots of squishing, crunching, creaking, and crying.  Film is by nature a visual medium, but even in the days of silent films, there would be title cards to help shape the narrative.  There is none of that here, except for a quote from the Book of Leviticus which opens the film.  Because of this, Mad God is certainly an experience, but of what exactly, it is hard to say.  It keeps much of the details of the story close to the heart, and while the imagery does do a lot of heavy lifting and gives a bit of context, it would have been a stronger film had the plot been more readily accessible.  As it stands, it is an incredible work of art, but it is hard to call it a success as a film.  Those, however, with an affinity for ballet may be better equipped to suss out a story, here, as both can be factored down to extended visual sequences backed by evocative music.  

Mad God is a macabre spectacle, even if as a story it is not very successful.  The sheer amount of artistry, craft, and passion that went into each and every meticulous frame is astounding, and it is clearly the work of a singular visionary with an idea clawing its way into fruition no matter the cost.  There is so much going on visually that the lack of context for the images does not present itself right away as we are captured by the next big and gruesome thing, but once some distance is formed between the work and the audience, the lack of investigation becomes apparent.  It would be an almost impossible task, however, to ascribe a traditional script to the film – there is a good chance that the inhabitants of this world have long ago lost their ability to speak – but that the film wholly refuses to investigate its themes in a more clear and precise manner makes Mad God feeling akin to an art installation where the museum has run out of informative brochures leaving the patrons stranded in their search for understanding.