Danny's Horror Report: Stop Motion (2023)

 Written By: Danny Albers 

British horror has been red hot on the streaming app Shudder. The service has allowed for lower budget horror films to reach directly to horror lovers and become cult favorites. That’s what happened last year with Stop Motion. The unique tale of an animator becoming the mortician wax figure has made some noise on the internet. Admittingly, I think horror fans tend to over exaggerate horror movies when they aren’t obviously bad in order to put over the genre. But that’s not this film. I think that non-horror lovers could watch and appreciate this movie (with an exception to the gory scene of Ella pulling the muscle out of her leg). Let’s break down the story and try to piece together the bizarre ending of the film and what the overall meaning was.  

Little Girl in the Woods 

Ella Blake’s mother overworks her as her assistant. Her strict work schedule has made it incredibly challenging to have any type of social life and relationship. Her mother is Suzanne Blake, a famous stop-motion animator who now has arthritis and health issues, and can’t act out the scenes or make the figurines. So while Suzzane calls the shots, Ella’s hands do all the work. Suzanne eventually has a stroke, in which Ella vows to her mother that she will finish the cyclops movie that they were working on. Ella rents a studio apartment instead of living with her boyfriend. She makes a studio to finish the film. A young girl lives in the building, and she is interested in what Ella is making. Ella, struggling to come up with any ideas, afraid she’s not the genius like her mom, begins to listen to the ideas that this girl is giving her. The little girl makes a tale about a young girl lost in the woods. She thinks that in order to tell this tale, that the animations should be made from spoiled steak to emulate real flesh. 

The Ash Man 

The little girl continues to narrate this animated story. The little girl in the woods is being stalked by an entity called “The Ash Man.” The girl insists that the Ash Man has to be made from something dead, and tells Ella to make him out of the carcass of a dead fox. Ella attempts to break ties with the little girl, but the writer's block begins to drive her crazy. She’s beginning to hallucinate the story of “The Ash Man” every time a new revelation is revealed and completed by the little girl. Meanwhile, her boyfriend betrays her by getting her a job with his sister, who works for a stop motion animation company. Ella realizes that her story has been plagiarized by her boyfriend and his sister, and storms off. The little girl’s final idea is that Ash Man touches the young girl in the woods, but Ella decides that she escapes. She passes out and wakes up in the hospital with an injured leg. Her boyfriend, having enough of this, tells her that they must destroy the project right away. 

Every Artist’s Creation Contains a Piece of Them

Ella strangles the girl to death, only for the girl to revive. Ella laughs, assuming that she did this with the confidence the little girl is a figment of an imagination. The girl tells Ella that Ash Man must be bloodier, and be a part of her. So Ella pulls the muscle out of her leg. She’s discovered by her boyfriend and her sister, and she murders both of them. Using their flesh, she makes the final scene, in which The Ash Man comes to life. The Ash Man begins to eat Ella’s face, which is now made of mortician’s wax. The movie ends with the little girl and Ella watching footage of Ella bleeding to death on the apartment floor. The girl tells Ella she loves the film, and Ella smiles at her and goes into a box and closes the lid. 

Final Thoughts

Similar to another British horror film that I covered, Ghost Stories, this film drifts in and out of reality and figments of imagination. It is clear that Ella had some type of break between being overworked by her mother, and feeling like she can’t live up to the expectations of her mother. Her mother is a pioneer of the stop motion world, and her lack of ideas and vision makes her feel useless. I feel like the ending of Ella closing the lid while laying in a toy chest of some sort, possibly signals that Ella always views herself as a puppet or just one of the stop motion dolls when working with her mom. So she created a little girl in a psychotic break to provide her ideas while she became one of the dolls that she created. The Ash Man could be a metaphor for her creations killing her and ruining her life, and the little girl lost in the woods is Ella lost without her mother to tell her what to do. Stop Motion is a unique film that all horror lovers need to see. It’s a psychological thriller that will have you trying to search for answers, even after the movie. If you have Shudder, Stop Motion is one of the best films on the streaming service. 

Danny’s Star Grade: ★★★★★★ 6