Cinequest 2023 Review: ABRUPTIO, Puppets, Bloody Bloody Puppets

This is the weirdest film I have ever seen. I thought Eraserhead was out of this world but this film is absolutely insane and not in a good way. I'll try my best to summarize the plot in the best way possible and then get into my much-needed critiques and believe me when I say that this movie has a lot of much-needed critiques.

The clumsy story centers around Lester, a 35-year-old man still living with his parents, working a dead-end job and undergoing a break-up with his distant girlfriend. His life gets turned upside down when he realizes that there is a bomb in his skull. After discovering this truth, he is forced to do unspeakable acts or the puppeteers will kill him.

It's already insane that the filmmakers used actual puppets instead of real people. Please don't ask me what the reason behind that was because I have no idea. It almost looked like a messed up version of the Nickelodeon show Mr. Meaty that I used to watch when I was a kid.

If people thought that Robert Zemeckis' The Polar Express had creepy-looking characters, this movie will take the cake. It meanders around its narrative more lost than the main character and unsure of what it's trying to say or accomplish. Moreover, I don't even think it's sure of its target demographic. It's too violent for kids and too stupid for adults.

The plot seems to jump from point to point without any real pay off at the end and there doesn't feel like there is anything building up to the final act of the film. This is what happens when you have a few drunk friends and they write up a script in one night about the craziest stories that they had and combine them all into a frankenstein of a film that never seems to go anywhere or encapsulate the imaginations of the audience.

In conclusion, this is not my cup of tea and would work better as an Adult Swim pilot rather than a feature-length film. I hope the director does better with his next piece.

The film screens at Cinequest again Tuesday, August 29.