Phil Tippett is a legendary visual effect supervisor who won his first Oscar in 1983 for Return of the Jedi and his second for Jurassic Park in 1993. He’s also created cyborgs and dragons for genre classics like Robocop and Willow.
And for the past thirty years, he’s been directing an experimental stop-action animated opus in his spare time.
Mad God is a 90-minute phantasmagoria that combines Ray Harryhausen with Hieronymus Bosch and LSD. Tippet’s horror masterpiece is crammed with faceless behemoths, bloody, lidless eyes, and screaming larvae. The plot is murky: during an endless war, a saboteur wearing a gas mask descends into hell with a briefcase full of dynamite. His mission? Blow up the enemy.
Mad God isn’t a story, though. It’s a vibe—non-stop gore and pandemonium. It can sometimes be a slog, but Tippet’s nightmarish vision of a world in ruins is stunning. You can’t look away.