In the magical world of animation, few creations can surpass that of stop-motion animation. We are in a world where everything is made with CGI anymore, and it sadly leaves out a lot of the fun and creativity that originally made animation so unique and fun. Luckily, with stop-motion animation, there is still a large amount of personal touches and artistry that can go into each animated sequence.
In some ways, stop-motion animation may seem to be a bit creepy as it often entails a creator and type of puppet that they may photograph thousands of times to create a purposeful effect. There is definitely an art to it, and in a world where the beauty of animation has been mostly lost to technology, stop-motion takes us back to an earlier and simpler time, though the work was certainly not simple.
Willis O'Brien is said to have been the first to bring stop-motion animation to Hollywood and be taken seriously. O'Brien worked on stop-motion animation with The Lost World in 1925 and King Kong in 1933, both of which received rave reviews. Since then, we have seen numerous stop-motion animation hits pass across the big screen. Many of them have been aimed toward children's entertainment, though some have been a little too risky for young minds.
Animated features have a better chance of eventually having a cult following if they are obscure and especially if they are stop-motion. Let's check out the best and most obscure stop-motion animated movies made.
9 Isle of Dogs (2018)
Isle of Dogs is a truly strange stop-motion animation movie; which if you look at the creators Wes Andersen, Roman Coppola, and Jason Schwartzman, it is no surprise exactly how strange this movie truly is. The stars of the movie, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, and Bryan Cranston just make it even weirder. The creepiest part of this movie about a boy looking for a lost dog has got to be the not-so-friendy voices and overall awkward attitude of the dogs on Trash Island. The female dogs really had no point other than being sexualized, also. Just a strange movie that is based in Japan but whose actors were all cherry-picked by Wes Andersen.
8 Coraline (2009)
The movie Coraline is creepy and just plain weird for many reasons, though nothing that Tim Burton has ever created falls far from it on the strangeness scale. The little girl who doesn't appreciate her boring parents that never play with her ends up finding a tiny secret door that holds so much more than anyone expected. Through that door, the little girl, Coraline, goes every night after being summoned by the fireflies. She has a mirror image of life on the other side of the door, except her parents are super nice in a creepy way and have buttons for eyes. They want her to stay forever, and that means having buttons sewed where her eyes are, which obviously freaks her out. The magical skinny black cat helps her and remains her buddy along with the boy from down the street.
7 Frankenweenie (2012)
Another amazing stop-motion animation movie by the brilliant Tim Burton. Is there anyone out there that doesn't like this talented man's work? If you are a dog lover or have lost a pet and wished to bring them back, this movie is for you. This lovely movie, Frankenweenie, is about a boy's love for his dog, even after the dog has died. The cute little wiener dog is resurrected, similar to the movie Frankenstein and chaos ensues. Everyone suddenly wants to bring their pets back to life, even if they haven't yet died. Obviously, this cannot continue to happen because it is causing a huge upset in the town. This is definitely an odd and unique movie for all ages.
6 Pinocchio (2022)
At this point, we are all very familiar with the unsettling creepiness that Guillermo del Toro's pieces drop in our unsuspecting laps. We know what to expect and there is a certain beautiful artistic touch to everything he does in the film industry. It is unique and nightmare inducing, but at the same time is something magical that you won't likely forget anytime soon.
This take of the classic, Pinocchio, definitely ticks all the creepy stop-motion boxes. This is not a film for children and will probably create a nasty and terrifying problem with bad dreams, so steer them far away from this one. In this take on the story of Pinocchio, we have all the familiar characters but they are much darker and scarier looking and acting. The poor man, Geppetto, is almost killing himself with grief after his son is killed by a missile dropped on a church. He nearly drinks himself to death and is very suicidal. The entire film has a dark, nightmarish feel to it. Even the sweet cricket, Jiminy Cricket, who helps Pinocchio out and seems to always be there when Pinocchio needs him is terrifying. Let's not even get started on the Blue Fairy.
5 Toys in the Attic (2009)
This is another oddball movie that definitely takes children's innocent toys and makes a very creepy version of them for the stop-motion animated movie, Toys in the Attic. In this movie, the toys must rescue their friend and fellow toy, Buttercup the doll from the Land of Evil. They are all living together in a box in a dusty old attic until Buttercup is kidnapped by the Head of the State.
Together, the mechanical mouse, huggable teddy bear, the marionette Sir Handsome and the other guy, Laurence set out on an epic adventure to rescue their friend. The toys in the attic are divided by the east and west sides of the attic which is a nod to the Cold War. The eyes of the toys in this movie are as unnerving as comparing the attic's residents to the good and bad side of the war. The evil side on the east is run by the Head of the State and the soldiers which are all rotting vegetables and insects. This is a very original movie you do not want to miss.
4 Vincent (1982)
This is another "what did I just watch" type of movie. Vincent was never released on DVD and is difficult to find. It is however available to watch on the 2008 Special or Collector's Edition of the Nightmare Before Christmas DVD. It is a very early film created by Tim Burton, champion of obscure films and is voiced by Vincent Price, who Tim Burton idolized.
Vincent Malloy, a seven-year-old boy, is obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe and becoming a mad scientist. He experiments on his dog, Abercrombie in hopes of creating a monster. He also begins hallucinating and slowly going mad after reading Poe's work. His life starts to play out a bit like "The Raven" and is just as poetic in a sense. He is overtaken with monsters in his mind in this peculiar stop-motion movie.
3 Mary and Max (2009)
Mary and Max is creepy and completely unsettling in several ways. Max is an autistic, obese man in his 40s living in NYC. Mary is an unattractive little eight-year-old girl in Melbourne Australia who is very lonely and enjoys her pen pal Max. Mary's parents are less than quality given her mother is an alcoholic and father is absent. She picks a random name out of a NYC phone book and writes to him also sending him a candy bar.
This friendship goes on for 20 more years and much happens to both characters. The imagery is a bit unsettling and the fact that a little girl so easily found an older man to be a pen pal with is even more unsettling. This movie highlights how some friends may seem peculiar though they can appear magical and lifesaving to the right people in need.
2 Blood Tea and Red String (2006)
Okay, now this movie is definitely bizarre. Blood Tea and Red String is a stop-motion animated movie about high class and low class Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak. The creatures are hired by the mice to make them a doll. Once the Creatures finish with the doll, they love it so much they want to keep it for themselves. Now, that doesn't sit right with the aristocratic mice so they become savages after drinking blood tea and decide to steal the doll. The fancy mice are severely creepy in their red clown suits and their glowing red eyes and the Creatures are equally creepy. Everything about this movie was harvested from a really weird nightmare, you would think. Even the doll is scary. Make sure to watch this one with adults in the daylight and hope these little creeps don't show up later in your dreams.
1 The House
This movie, The House, is unlike anything you've seen, and is entirely unique in its anthology of stories within the movie. Each story tells a tale about the house and each time its inhabitants are different. The first story is entirely creepy and unhinged. Humans leave their home when a free better home is offered. The parents basically lose their minds and eventually become furniture. A lot happens to the family before that moment in the movie. The parents do not survive. The next story is even more nightmarish and features anthropomorphic rats and insects taking over a house that is on the market.
The insects do not want to leave, and the developer decides to use boric acid on them. A human couple wants to move in, and the developer allows them to spend the night, which turns into more nights. The inhabitants are actually insects themselves and invite their entire family to also move in. The developer also remains with them in the end. The last story is a bit brighter and sends the movie off on a high note of positivity. Overall, you probably need to watch this today.