By BRANDON GIL
Starring James Marsters, Christopher McDonald, Hana Mae Lee
Written and Directed by Evan Marlowe
HellBent Pictures
Losing control of our autonomy is a fear that unites the human species. Self-awareness and the ability to deliberately choose our actions are what set us apart from other animals. Losing these human qualities relegates us to human puppets. Countless genres and subgenres explore this fear, including demonic possession (THE EXORCIST), sci-fi and psychological thrillers (THE STEPFORD WIVES, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS), and horror concerning coercion (SAW, TRUTH OR DARE). We root for the protagonist in these films because we empathize with their mission to cut their metaphorical puppet strings in order to regain agency.
In ABRUPTIO we follow Les Hackel, a down-on-his-luck alcoholic and recently single man who still lives at home with his overbearing mother. His mundane existence is uprooted when he discovers an explosive device implanted in his neck. Les is coerced into committing atrocities against others out of self-preservation lest his own explosive is detonated by the unknown forces that implanted it in our unwilling protagonist.
Much like film noir, Les begrudgingly descends into his city’s seedy underbelly and meets several unsavory and quirky characters along the way in his quest to uncover the mystery behind his newfound explosive device. Les learns that in order to cut his own puppet strings, he needs to look inward to admit some hard truths about himself. Sometimes the path to liberation is paved with difficult introspection.
While ABRUPTIO joins the ranks of human puppet films, there is one trait that makes it stand apart from the others: all of its characters are literally puppets.
The puppetry and practical effects in this film are impressive. These aren’t your standard, loveable Jim Henson puppets. They are incredibly lifelike, thus invoking some of the strongest uncanny valley that I have ever experienced. The creative team knows their work is incredible as the camera does not shy away from close up and extreme closeup shots of the characters, revealing scars, acne, blood vessels, crow’s feet, and all of the other lifelike blemishes that you would find on a human actor. The creators also love to remind us throughout the film that these characters’ insides are also just like ours. There is no shortage of realistic blood and viscera.
The voice acting harmonizes with the puppetry, making up for the latter’s limitations when it comes to expressing the full range of human emotion. The voice cast is stacked with well-known veteran actors, including James Marsters, Jordan Peele, Robert Englund, Christopher McDonald, and the late Sid Haig. All of these voice actors adeptly convey emotion and tone, thereby clearing any ambiguity that might result from the puppets’ stoic expressions alone.
Despite the lifelike puppetry and strong voice acting, this film does suffer from unintentional absurdity at times. We’re introduced to Les’ love interest, Chelsea (voiced by Hana Mae Lee), shortly after she survived a brutal attack and sexual assault by a group of men. She painfully recounts this experience with Les, but her permanent bug-eyed expression and her comically large hands prevented me from being fully in the moment in this scene that should have brought me to tears. In a film where the women are mean-spirited, overbearing, and comically oversexualized, I wonder how much thought was put into Chelsea as a fully fleshed-out (no pun intended) character. Was this misogyny or was it an intentional decision to deflect some of the very dark aspects of this film by leaning on the absurdity of her character design. Either way, Chelsea was done an injustice because the audience was never really given the opportunity to sit with the gravity of her situation.
Throughout the film, Les silently commits extreme acts of violence with what appears to be nonchalance. It’s difficult to know whether he’s a sociopath or if his design prevents him from conveying the emotions we would expect, namely disgust, grief, and shock. This is another byproduct of choosing to set this film in a world of puppets. Unlike more tonally silly puppet films like TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE, ABRUPTIO deals with very dark subject matters, making the dissonance we feel all the more real when we see the juxtaposition of silly puppets with extreme violence.
While watching this film, apply this litmus test: “if this film didn’t have puppets, would it still be good? Or is this just a gimmick?” We can call this the “puppet test.” While it doesn’t have an entirely original storyline, its dreamlike cadence and cast of eccentric characters creates an offbeat atmosphere that is uniquely ABRUPTIO. This film passes the test, but just barely. It really does come down to the puppets; they make this film standout in a sea of horror.
If practical effects, especially puppetry, appeal to you, then this is a must-watch. Its character designs are just downright impressive. So much so that lead puppeteer, Danny Montooth, and lead puppet fabricator, Jeff Farley, received top billing in the credits before household names like Jordan Peele. Despite some of its tonal and storytelling flaws, ABRUPTIO is a love letter to practical effects in horror and to the artists behind them.
