Now available on disc from Anchor Bay
A man wakes up with an explosive device in his neck after a string of bad luck. What will he be willing to do to survive?
Written and directed by Evan Marlowe, Abruptio is a trip and a half, taking a story that would befit any good thriller out there and putting it in the hands of an all puppet cast. Yes, you read that right, all human-sized puppet cast. The story here, puppet or not, is fairly interesting and brings together the most random group of characters Marlowe could think of, putting some of them in danger, giving trauma to others, and making the most of each setting with the types of characters at hand. While these characters are mostly bland “people” they do end up in unusual situations and these make the film what it is. The character development here is filled with odd choices and things that make the characters not exactly likable.
The cast here is all puppets so they must be looked at here. The puppets are eerily creepy even when the characters are almost purely good. The looks they have make them come off a bit uncanny valley, especially with those dead eyes standing in for human eyes while not being alive and pretending to be. Something about those eyes and how the faces move adds to the creepiness of these puppets in a major way. The voice acting for these characters also has some odd choices that don’t all work. James Marsters voices the lead, Les Hackel, and his work is interesting. Days later and still unsure if it works or doesn’t. He does nail the bored and depressed every man, but something about it doesn’t feel right. Christopher MacDonald voices Police Chief Richter and does a great job of making him sound like an asshole whose assholery doesn’t depend on his lines, and Hama Mae Lee works well as Chelsea. Hearing Jordan Peele and Robert Englund is definitely fun and the fact that Sid Haig voiced a character in this before passing is amazing considering he passed in 2019. His presence is almost haunting but this does not have much to do with the film itself and rather the fact that we all miss him (yes, all of us in the world).
The cinematography and editing here are both by writer-director Evan Marlow (who also voices one of the characters), making the film truly his. The cinematography here works well and frames the puppet in a way to make them look almost alive. The editing is ok and works for the film’s needs.
Overall, Abruptio is an oddity that fully commits to the weirdness of having an all puppet cast work within the locations as fully-human-pretending with full size everything. The film is surprisingly bloody, and the uncanny valley quality is spooky here. It’s well done and utterly creepy with a high dose of WTF throughout. And of course, this horror fan is never mad at a solid performance from Sid Haig.
This new Blu-ray release of Abruptio look good in high definition and the sound is more than decent. The extras here are not numerous as we have been made accustomed to by other companies who really spoil the viewers with all their extras. Here, the extras are limited but their quality is high. The two audio commentaries are interesting with the one with puppeteer Danny Montooth being the strongest of the two for this viewer. The added interviews with the filmmaker and performers are also rather interesting.