Movies

Director of horror film Stopmotion thinks tiny puppets are scary as hell

EW has an exclusive first look at the trailer for the movie that director Robert Morgan says is "about the relationship between creativity and madness."

By

Clark Collis

Published on January 24, 2024 12:00PM EST

Writer-director Robert Morgan doesn't understand why stop-motion has become so associated with family friendly fare like Fantastic Mr. Fox and the Chicken Run movies. The U.K.-based filmmaker explains that he finds this form of animation "disturbing and frightening."

"I've never thought that stop-motion is a cutesy kid thing," Morgan tells EW. "I've always thought it was an uncanny, slightly occult process, building little puppets and then doing this strange ritual on them which brings them to life."

Morgan's view of the art form as one full of hellish and terrifying possibilities does much to explain his first full-length movie, which EW can reveal in an exclusive first look at the trailer.

Titled Stopmotion, the film stars Aisling Franciosi (Game of Thrones, The Last Voyage of the Demeter) as an animator named Ella who starts to mentally spiral while attempting to create a short film using the titular technique. Fanciosi explains that her character is living with her mother, a very well-known stop-motion animator.

"Ella is very much under her thumb," the actress explains. "She wants to express her own creative voice. When she has the opportunity, she realizes it can be tricky to do that in a healthy [way]."

Over time, the nightmarish world of Ella's movie encroaches on her real-life existence, while the young filmmaker's search for suitable materials with which to mold her characters leads her down a grim and gory path. Basically, the movie does for directing stop-motion animation what The Shining did for writing a novel. Morgan describes his tale as "a film about the relationship between creativity and madness."

The director seems to have been permanently affected by his youthful viewing of an old British horror film. He was just 4 years old when an uncle showed him highlights of a b-movie called Fiend Without a Face. "It’s got these killer brains crawling around, and the effects were done via stop-motion," Morgan recalls. "I knew inherently at that age that there was something creepy about the way these brains were moving. So maybe that’s the root of all of this."

The director admits he was inspired to make his feature debut after a period in which he found himself becoming somewhat unglued while directing the 2011 stop-motion short Bobby Yeah.

"I had the sensation that the film took on a life of its own," Morgan says. "It almost felt like it was telling me what it was rather than me dictating to it what it should be. [I had] this slightly exciting but also slightly unnerving feeling of a thing that you’re creating controlling you rather than you controlling it."

Maybe it didn't help that he had used his own toenails to craft one of the film's characters. "I had been gradually collecting my toenails in a little jar for years," he says. "I don’t know why, I just thought it would be something that I might be able to use at some point. As I was making the film, this image popped into my head of using them to make a puppet out of toenails, so one of the characters in that film has a head made of toenails."

Stopmotion BTS Director Robert Morgan and actress Aisling Franciosi ON SET — 'Stopmotion' star Aisling Franciosi and director Robert Morgan.
IFC Films and Shudder

Franicosi recalls her agent telling the actress that the Stopmotion script was "bonkers, but I think you'll love it," which proved correct. To prep for the part of Ella, she received lessons from Morgan in the art of stop-motion. 'I did have a brief moment when I thought, I could get into this. Then I thought, I already struggle to check things off my to-do list on a normal day, I don’t think I can add getting sucked into a stop-motion animation to my list, so I think I’ll leave it to Rob."

Franciosi admits she was concerned she would become "a human version of a puppet" for Morgan during the shoot, but she says the director was "amazing" and "super-collaborative." She adds, "[He] really let me do my thing, until he felt there was something that could go in a different direction. I would work with him in a heartbeat."

Maybe she'll get the chance. Morgan tells EW that he and Stopmotion cowriter Robin King are currently developing another feature-length project. Will it feature toenails?

Morgan pauses long enough to make one worried he might have been offended by the jokey remark. "Now, that you mention it," the director says, eventually, "it might, actually, yes."

Stopmotion costars Tom York, Caolinn Springall, Stella Gonet, and Therica Wilson-Read.

IFC is releasing the film in theaters Feb. 23 before Stopmotion hits Shudder on May 31. Watch EWs' exclusive trailer reveal above and see the film's new poster below.