Raunchy comedies centered around puppets doesn’t seem related to horror in the least, unless you go back to the roots with Peter Jackson’s Meet the Feebles. Self-described as a spluppet feature (splatter + puppet), Meet the Feebles was the second film in Jackson’s splatter phase in between Bad Taste and Braindead (Dead Alive). Originally intended to be a TV series, surprising enthusiasm from Japanese investors instead turned this into a feature length film that followed the cast and crew behind the scenes of a Muppet-like variety show.
There’s really no central narrative to this film, Meet the Feebles is just an exploration of the sleazy underbelly of showbiz. Though the audience spends the most time with aging star Heidi the Hippo and innocent newcomer Robert the Hedgehog, we spend time with just about every character and facet of the show, and every possible bodily fluid in the process. It begins tame enough at it introduces all of the characters, mostly just sex and cursing, but gradually builds into the most shocking puppet film that will likely ever be committed to celluloid.
There’s attempted rape, drug use, paternity battles, a Vietnam war flashback in the vein of Deer Hunter, puppet porn, puppet sex, murder, nudity and just about every crude and rude vice and joke you can think of on display here. It’s also extremely gross. Harry the Rabbit, the MC of the variety show, starts coming down with gnarly symptoms after a three-way sex scene. He’s diagnosed with a gruesome STD, a possible puppet equivalent to AIDS, and spends the rest of the film progressing into grosser states of illness with profuse vomiting and oozing, popping boils and legions all over. There’s a paparazzi Fly character that fittingly eats poop, an elephant that urinates over smaller characters, blood, and more. This is a Jackson splatter film, after all.
The grand finale is a showstopping musical number about sodomy, complete with large glittery phallic statues and backup singers. It’s spliced with a shocking mass shooting in the theater; a character pushed to their breaking point after a failed suicide who then decides to gun down everyone else instead. Considering today’s climate, it’s a finale that has a greater shock impact today than it did in 1989.
The low production values and Jackson’s no holds barred approach to the savage, sleazy nature of showbiz is a crude, low budget take on Grand Guignol theatrics. It’s as subversive as it is gross, and Jackson uses the puppets to get away with, well, everything. Meet the Feebles pushes the envelope farther than any other film and gets away with it because its characters aren’t human. Typical of this era of Jackson’s work, Meet the Feebles is meant for those with a demented sense of humor and a strong stomach. Fans of his splatter phase work will also find Jackson in the audience of the variety show in character as an alien from Bad Taste. Jackson set the bar high in 1989 (or low, depending on tastes) for offensive puppet comedies. It’s so outlandish, graphic, and disturbing, that there’s really no other audience for it outside of horror.
If you’ve yet to see the original “spluppet” film, Meet the Feebles can currently be streamed for free on Tubi.TV