I can imagine that creating a stop motion animation is a very slow and tedious process, but an ultimately rewarding one. I wish the same could be said of this film, which is certainly slow and tedious, but doesn't satisfy as a whole.
Aisling Franciosi plays Ella, daughter of famous animator Suzanne Blake (Stella Gonet); together, they are attempting to complete a stop-motion movie, but the project comes to a halt when Suzanne suffers a stroke. Compelled to complete her overbearing mother's film, Ella hides herself away in a vacant tower block and sets to work, but eventually decides to make her own movie. Struggling for inspiration, Ella takes advice from a young girl (Caoilinn Springall) who plays in the building, and together they create the bizarre story of a young girl terrorised by a figure called The Ash Man. However, as time goes by, Ella loses her grip on reality...
Roman Polanski did the whole 'psychotic breakdown' thing so much better nearly sixty years ago with Repulsion; Stopmotion's director, Robert Morgan, does nothing new with the idea, making his film a rather redundant exercise. The freaky animation lends a certain sense of style to proceedings, but Ella's gradual decline is predictable and, for the most part, told in a lethargic, uninteresting fashion. The final act picks up the pace a tad and throws in a smidge of gore, but this only serves to emphasise just how deathly dull the rest of the film is.
Aisling Franciosi plays Ella, daughter of famous animator Suzanne Blake (Stella Gonet); together, they are attempting to complete a stop-motion movie, but the project comes to a halt when Suzanne suffers a stroke. Compelled to complete her overbearing mother's film, Ella hides herself away in a vacant tower block and sets to work, but eventually decides to make her own movie. Struggling for inspiration, Ella takes advice from a young girl (Caoilinn Springall) who plays in the building, and together they create the bizarre story of a young girl terrorised by a figure called The Ash Man. However, as time goes by, Ella loses her grip on reality...
Roman Polanski did the whole 'psychotic breakdown' thing so much better nearly sixty years ago with Repulsion; Stopmotion's director, Robert Morgan, does nothing new with the idea, making his film a rather redundant exercise. The freaky animation lends a certain sense of style to proceedings, but Ella's gradual decline is predictable and, for the most part, told in a lethargic, uninteresting fashion. The final act picks up the pace a tad and throws in a smidge of gore, but this only serves to emphasise just how deathly dull the rest of the film is.