Confession: puppets really creep me out. I loved The Muppets as a kid, but they also scared me. I put off watching Labyrinth for decades because of how terrifying the puppet creatures looked. So when I decided to watch and review a horror movie with the unique concept of having an all-puppet cast, I didn’t know if it would be any good, but I knew I’d be highly uncomfortable. As a horror fan, that’s a feeling I both love and hate. Abruptio is written and directed by Evan Marlowe with voice work from the likes of James Marsters, Jordan Peele, Robert Englund, and the late Sid Haig, in what was his last role. It’s part thriller, part over-the-top sci-fi horror, part character study, and all the way strange. Not all of Abruptio worked, but I won’t soon forget it.

What Is ‘Abruptio’ About?

After going under years ago, Anchor Bay Entertainment is back, and one of their first films is Abruptio, a sci-fi horror comedy with a cast made up entirely of puppets. We open on Lester Hackel (Marsters), a sad sack of a man who has nothing in his life. He’s thirty-five, overweight, works at a mind-numbing desk job, and then goes home to live with his parents. On top of that, he’s now single, as his girlfriend just broke up with him that very day. The only person Lester has in his life is his friend Danny (Peele), but he’s the party guy who wants to drink even though Lester is an alcoholic who just quit drinking a few days ago and now goes to AA meetings.

Lester’s life is so pathetic that he could die and no one would miss him much, but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to let go. One day, he and Danny both discover that they have had small bombs surgically implanted in the back of their necks. The unknown villains who did this leave them messages saying that if they don’t do exactly as they’re told, the bomb will go off and kill them. Lester is then sent to meet complete strangers, also implanted with the bomb, and they go on unthinkable missions made to push them and see just what they’re capable of doing, all in the name of survival.

America is falling apart with the President just assassinated and anarchy taking over. It all plays out on the news, with animation instead of puppets used to show the footage. Still, Lester’s missions go on. He is at first sent to a standup comedy club, where he meets an old man named Sal (voiced by Sid Haig in his last role). The two are sent to a family’s home where they are told to do the unspeakable to those inside or die. Later, Lester is sent to meet a man named Mr. Salk (Englund), who has done things so horrible that Abruptio can only talk about it rather than show it. While Lester is numb to what he must do, Mr. Salk is close to madness. Lester is helped out by the fact that the unseen baddies give him things for every mission he now completes, and he has now just met a woman, Chelsea (Hanna Mae Lee), a scared college student who takes up with him. Still, what’s Lester to do when the police take him in and demand that he confess to something he doesn’t know about?

The Puppets in ‘Abruptio’ Are Unnerving

The choice for Abruptio to use puppets to tell its story is an intriguing one. It may be uncomfortable, but that’s part of the point. The tagline is “Everyone’s a puppet,” so why not use actual puppets to make that point? Abruptio has some comedy elements, but don’t go in expecting these puppets to be used for physical gags like in Team America: World Policeor Melissa McCarthy’s The Happytime Murders. There’s nothing to laugh at with the very serious puppets in Abruptio.

You have a man named Jeff Farley to thank (or curse) for creating the puppets in Abruptio, a film that took seven years to make. According to Evan Marlowe, in a 2020 post on his blog, he was determined to use only lifelike hand puppets with no CGI, adding, “This sort of thing has never been done. The Dark Crystal comes close, though there, the designers weren’t bound by the confines of reality. We are. We’re adrift in uncharted seas.”

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That reality is what makes the Abruptio puppets stand out. This isn’t a fantastical world of fantastical creatures, but our real world. Everything around the puppets exists. We see actual houses and streets and cars, but it’s puppet people instead of us who live there. What Marlowe and Farley created are characters who are at once lifelike yet off-kilter, which will give the viewer a great deal of anxiety. Lester’s face might look numb, but Sal’s eyes are popping out of his head like a psychotic cartoon character. Sometimes the eyes (which blink!) don’t move quite right, or the lips don’t exactly match the words, but that only adds to the unnerving nature of the presentation. Abruptio offers an alternate-looking reality, but with a side of nightmare fuel you can’t look away from.

‘Abruptio’s Concept Is More Fascinating Than the Plot
Image via HellBent Pictures

Still, a gimmick can only take you so far. Okay, you’re making a movie starring puppets? Interesting. Then what? Abruptio’s puppet strategy to get you watching is the hook, but as you get used to it, you want more than that. There is a hook outside the imagery too, with the plot of some unknown terrorists planting bombs in people’s necks and getting them to commit the worst of crimes. That’s compelling and scary. We want to see how far a character will go and who will be revealed to be behind it.

This is where Abruptio started to lose me. Lester is not a likable character worth rooting for. He does whatever he’s told without ever fighting back or playing the hero. His head could blow up at any moment and who would care? He’s purposely presented this way, and Lester knows exactly how worthless he is, but it makes it hard to stay invested when you don’t care who lives or dies. Sid Haig and Robert Englund, who made a career out of terrifying us with their voices in the likes of The Devil’s Rejects and A Nightmare on Elm Street, kill it in their limited screen time, but this is Lester’s story, and he is the dullest of protagonists. Then there’s the reveal of who the big baddies are. I won’t give it away here, but I was disappointed, and thought for several minutes that it would be shown to be a joke. The second act stays in the lackluster reveal for too long, taking the film out of the reality that it was effectively set in, and transplanting us to a bizarre world where suddenly puppets aren’t the most unusual aspect.

Abruptio nearly saves itself in the third act twist, where we find out why Lester acts the way he does. Everything is brought full circle, and while our anti-hero can’t exactly be redeemed and made worthy of rooting for, he does at least make peace with his failures and take responsibility for them. There is a message in there under the surface (and in the title), with a lot of the visuals of the plot used as subtext to get us there, but I wish the second act had taken a different path to get there. Abruptio first had to lose me before it pulled me back in. If anything else, Abruptio will make you highly uncomfortable, and it’s so unnerving that it will give you nightmares. Perhaps that’s the whole point of using puppets. Lester’s life is a nightmare. Might as well make yours one too for ninety minutes. I didn’t walk away highly impressed, but now I keep thinking about it, even when I wish I wasn’t.

Abruptio is available to rent on Prime Video.

Your changes have been saved Abruptio A puppet-centered nightmare whose sometimes confusing message goes beyond the imagery.Release Date June 21, 2024 Director Evan Marlowe Runtime 94 minutes ProsThe puppet designs are lifelike yet terrifying.Sid Haig and Robert Englund are phenomenal in their voice work.The inciting incident asks intriguing questions.The third act reveal says a lot in its imagery. ConsLester is a main character we don’t care about.The twist of who the villains are didn’t work.The second act drags way too long.

Your changes have been saved Abruptio follows Les Hackel, a man facing dire circumstances when he discovers an explosive device implanted in his neck. To survive, he navigates performing criminal acts while unraveling the identity of the mastermind behind the bizarre events that have upended his life.Release Date June 21, 2024 Director Evan Marlowe Runtime 94 minutes

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