Mad God.
30 years in the making, Paul Tippett's nightmare-fuelled stop motion fever dream has finally hit the cinemas, and it's a wild ride!
The response from critics and audiences has been as potent as it has been polarised.
Writing for rogerebert.com, Nick Allen described Tippett's masterpiece as 'Violently offensive in ways that defy human comprehension.'
John Bleasedale called it 'a work of a genuine visionary', while Kristy Puchko said it was 'darker, stranger, and much more of a ******** that you could possibly dream.'
In an unusually perceptive review, Walter Chaw wrote '
Mad God is unfettered creation yoked lightly to an archetypical quest substrate that allows us to engage it as a thing with stakes, whatever they might be... It's terrifying not because we understand it, but because we understand it just enough.'
Only he knows what he meant by this.
Emerging from
Mad God's premiere in Munich, a visibly shaken David H. Lynch would only say that the experience was 'Appallingly visceral; a shameless affront to the dignity of God and man.'
Scott Wilson was dismissive ('Before long, its shtick makes its point, and from then it's the same old song on a horrendous loop') yet Dread Central's Grant Watson had nothing but praise ('a hypnotic cinematic experience and a filmmaking marvel').
Mad God is not easily categorised, but its sociopolitical themes are boldly clear, and its message is one that can touch us all.
I rate
Mad God at 33.3 on the Haglee Scale, which works out as a perfect 10/10 on IMDB.