AnimaDEAD!

Kynan takes the curator's chair this month and leads with the question they drilled into him in grad school: why does this have to be animated? Three films answer it three different ways, and every answer turns out to be about the same uncomfortable thing — somebody's body as raw material.Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon, 1997) starts the descent. A pop idol ditches her group for a serious acting career and watches her sense of self go with it. Parasocial dread a full twenty-five years before we had the word for it. Mad God (Phil Tippett, 2021) is a hard left turn. Thirty years and a Kickstarter in the making, it's a near-wordless plunge through a stop-motion hell of creatures stitched from meat and rot. This is the episode's "respect it more than you enjoy it" centerpiece.Stopmotion (Robert Morgan, 2023) is where metaphor stops being… well… metaphor. An animator's assistant tries to finish her dying mother's film and starts feeding the puppets her own flesh.What nobody planned, since Kynan hadn't even seen two of the three before slotting them together: the week kept circling back to the same grim idea: in animation, the artist is always the material.Featured FilmsTonight's Triple Feature:Perfect Blue (1997) — dir. Satoshi Kon - Apple TV | Amazon | LetterboxdMad God (2021) — dir. Phil Tippett - Apple TV | Amazon | LetterboxdStopmotion (2023) — dir. Robert Morgan - Apple TV | Amazon | LetterboxdView Our List on Letterboxd(00:00) - Welcome to Sitting in the Dark(00:58) - AnimaDEAD Horror!(06:33) - Perfect Blue(29:15) - Mad God(49:32) - Stopmotion(01:11:26) - Coming Attractions: The Rockets Red Glare!Support The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Shows:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next ReelSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Chelsea | Kyle | Kynan | Pete | Tommy Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Audible