Visual effects pioneer Phil Tippett spent thirty years bringing the stop-motion hellscape that is Mad God to life, and the results are almost ninety minutes of pure nightmare fuel. We follow The Assassin as he follows a decaying map toward a destination unknown through a world where death comes for the faceless denizens as soon as they’re manufactured, whether it’s by flying monolithic bricks from out of nowhere or through weapons wielded by a giant Eldritchian monstrosity of a creature. Just when The Assassin seems to have reached his goal, the movie takes turns from the nightmarish to the cerebral, then metatextual and back again. Tippett’s epic odyssey is a phantasmagoric melding of Pink Floyd: The Wall, Eraserhead, Paradise Lost and the Jupiter: And Beyond The Infinite segment from 2001: A Space Odyssey, made frightening through gorgeously rendered set and character designs, lyrical, abstract storytelling, and thoughtful, if chilling ideas about the effects of war on authoritarianism, and the madness that lurks within the artist.

Also, [
Show Spoiler
]