Overview: Les Hackel hates his life. He works a dead-end job, was just dumped by his high-maintenance girlfriend, and still lives with his nagging mom. One night, he discovers a fresh incision behind his neck. His friend Danny tells him it’s a bomb, that someone has implanted one in his neck, too.

And then the messages start coming in, forcing Les to carry out missions with deadly results. Les is partnered up with a series of oddball characters to commit heinous tasks. The violence escalating around him, Les pieces together the clues that reveal the horrific plans to breed a monstrous race of beings.

DVD Verdict: Les Hackel (James Marsters) is down on his luck. Maybe even worse when he wakes up to find that an explosive device has been implanted in his neck. Now, he must carry out heinous crimes in order to stay alive while trying to identify the mastermind ordering him to keep killing.

Oh, and this is 100% and completely a movie made with ... puppets!

Oh, and it took six years to make this movie!!

Featuring a quite incredible voice cast, including the late Sid Haig (who passed back in 2019), Robert Englund, Jordan Peele and Christopher McDonald, amongst a slew of others, I have never, ever seen a movie quite like this (that feels like this or looks like this or even feels like this!)

In truth, it might be too much a visual ask for a lot of people, but if you can get past just how strange it looks to have human-sized puppets in every role, this movie is really pretty awesome. Reality pretty much falls apart as Les has to place poison gas in workplaces, watches assassination TV shows and even is forced to slice the head off a baby (!), one which soon sprouts tentacles!

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Can we even be sure after the end? If you want to see a movie that goes all the way and beyond, Abruptio is for you, my friends.

Director and writer Evan Marlowe has said about Abruptio, We resolved, for some insane reason, to use only realistic lifelike hand puppets in actual settings, just like any other movie. No CGI backgrounds or actors wearing prosthetic makeup. 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’ve had a few incredibly skilled people helping out. Jeff Farley has been our lead puppet fabricator. Again, this kind of work isn’t common, so some amount of trial and error has been needed to find the balance of aesthetic, durability and function. Meaning, the heads need to look great on camera, hold up well under shooting environments that are often hostile, and let the puppeteer emote without too much effort.

When it comes to the actual shoot, our puppeteer Danny Montooth lip syncs with each line, played on loop on my magical iPad until all the aspects - lighting, camera movement, mouth motion, eye line - are just right. Once I’ve got the footage, I edit it up and then our visual effects guy John Sellings smooths out any problems. When a scene is done, it gets color-corrected and graded, and then the sound and score are added.

Special Features:
A New Kind of Horror. Interviews with the performers and filmmakers
Audio Commentary track with Writer / Director Evan Marlowe and Producer Kerry Marlowe
Audio Commentary track with puppeteer Danny Montooth