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In a world where horror frequently flirts with the absurd, Abruptio stands out as a strange testament to the power of puppetry, weaving together the unsettling threads of science fiction, horror, and dark comedy.

This film, directed by Evan Marlowe, is more than a narrative; it is an experience that defies genre standards and expectations. A unique selling point—its whole ensemble is made up of puppets—invites us to grapple with our discomfort and curiosity, evoking a variety of feelings that can be as baffling as they are intense.

Lester Hackel, a thirty-five-year-old slacker living in his parent’s basement, grappling with alcoholism and a recent breakup, is a character whose tragic circumstances are drawn with a heavy hand in the film. At first sight, he feels like a caricature, but his plight has a frightening resonance. Lester realizes he has a bomb implanted in his neck, a terrible...

It is limiting horror movies to only carrying a social or thematic message. Sometimes these films can simply exist as visceral showcases. Horror movies can showcase human craftsmanship in practical effects, gore, special effects, etc., eliciting immediate reactions from the audience that have also become one of the genre’s trademarks.

To that end, “Abruptio” by Evan Marlowe is a marvelous work of craftsmanship. The entire film is done via puppetry, with a mix of live puppetry and life-size puppet work. There might also have been actors wearing puppet masks to maintain continuity in a film doubling down on its discontinuous sensibilities.

A middle-aged man, living with his parents, stuck in a dead-end job, and having broken up with his girlfriend of two years, gets a text message revealing that a bomb is stuck in his neck. If he doesn’t want to be blown up, he would have to...

The recently resurrected Anchor Bay Entertainment will release a trio of new indie horror films on Blu-ray and DVD on December 10: Crust, Cursed in Baja, and Abruptio.

Character actor Sean Whalen (The People Under the Stairs) makes his feature directorial debut on Crust, an offbeat horror-comedy about a sock monster that he co-wrote with Jim Wald.

Whalen stars with Daniel Roebuck (Terrifier 3), Alan Ruck (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), and Ricky Dean Logan (Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare).

In Crust, “Vegas Winters is a former child star who owns a laundromat. One of the benefits of running the place is finding all the leftover socks from his customers, which Vegas uses in creative ways. After Vegas becomes the victim of bullying, he seeks refuge from the attack in the pile of socks. His pain somehow creates a monster willing to seek vengeance for Vegas.”

Cursed in Baja...

If you’ve heard anything at all about the film Abruptio, it’s most likely been positive, and you’ve probably wondered why you can’t find it in a theater or streaming. All of that is changing, which is a very good thing if you’re a fan of unique horror movies.

Released in 2023, Abruptio played at 37 international festivals, winning 21 awards along the way. I was lucky enough to receive a screener at that time, and I absolutely loved it. But, don’t take just my word for it. My colleague Brian Fanelli recently had the opportunity to watch Abruptio and he also gave it an extremely positive review.

Abruptio opened in select theaters on September 27, and will continue its run through at least mid-October. Hopefully, it will expand into even more theaters, because it’s a film that deserves to be seen on the big screen.

Abruptio -...

Abruptio is the kind of movie that I would have respect for based on its main hook even if it didn’t actually work. The second full feature for writer/director Evan Marlowe, the film tells the entirety of its story using life-like puppets, with zero on-screen human actors. And as a fan of puppets and puppetry as an art form, I was immediately intrigued. Even most Jim Henson productions rarely omitted humans entirely, so to have something do it to tell a realistic horror story is certainly unique.

And while the film is still mostly carried by that novelty, Abruptio thankfully has at least a little bit more going on under the surface; using that aforementioned impressive puppetry to tell an unpredictable and thrilling, if somewhat messy, story that manages to stay consistently compelling and deeply human amidst its often labyrinthine narrative twists.

What is Abruptio about?

Lester in...

In a deal that closed at the EFM over the weekend revived genre label Anchor Bay Entertainment has acquired North American rights to the horror comedy Crust featuring a cast of genre veterans and Succession star Alan Ruck.

Sean Whalen, who starred in Wes Craven’s The People Under The Stairs, makes his feature directorial debut on the story, and stars as Vegas Winters, a depressed washed-up child actor who fled Tinseltown and owns and lives in a rundown laundromat.

The despondent man’s tears of anguish turn a pile of socks into a loving monster named Crust, who protects...

Back in the late ’90s and early 2000s, Anchor Bay Entertainment was a major player in the horror world, giving DVD releases to films like the Evil Dead trilogy, George A. Romero’s Dead trilogy, the Sleepaway Camp franchise, The Hills Have Eyes, The Car, Maniac, Prom Night, some of the Hellraisers, Halloweens, and much more. Then things changed, and eventually Anchor Bay got folded into Lionsgate Home Entertainment… but now Deadline reports that the Anchor Bay Entertainment label is being revived, and the revival is starting off with the releases of puppet horror film Abruptio and Dinner with Leatherface, a documentary that looks at the life, career, and legacy of original Leatherface actor Gunnar Hansen!

Umbrelic Entertainment co-founders Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz are behind the return of Anchor Bay Entertainment, and they’re planning to use the label to bring the world “genre films, undiscovered treasures, cult classics,...

A familiar label for horror fans is getting a resurrection. Umbrelic Entertainment co-founders Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz are bringing back a new iteration of Anchor Bay Entertainment with the goal to curate a new library of films for distribution, projects that range from new release genre films, undiscovered treasures, cult classics, and remastered catalog releases.

The new launch comes with a pair of acquisition titles: puppet horror film Abruptio and documentary Dinner with Leatherface.

“We had an opportunity to take the name of a beloved genre film brand, one we feel a personal connection to, for our new company,” says Zambeck in a press release statement. “This is a new venture, unaffiliated with any previous incarnations. We aim to honor the history and spirit of the past as we look for interesting films that break the mold, and will be discovered by new generations for years to come.”

In...

Exclusive: Umbrelic Entertainment co-founders Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz are bringing back a new Anchor Bay Entertainment with an eye on genre films, undiscovered treasures, cult classics, and remastered catalog releases.

“We had an opportunity to take the name of a beloved genre film brand, one we feel a personal connection to, for our new company,” says Zambeck. “This is a new venture, unaffiliated with any previous incarnations. We aim to honor the history and spirit of the past as we look for interesting films that break the mold, and will be discovered by new generations for years to come.”

In Lionsgate’s acquisition of Starz in December 2016, the studio absorbed the North American branches of Anchor Bay Entertainment. The Anchor Bay Entertainment trademark was up for acquisition so Zambeck and Katz took the opportunity to acquire it. The new Anchor Bay Entertainment doesn’t include the previous label’s library.

Grimmfest, Manchester’s International Festival of Fantastic Film, are delighted to announce their full feature film lineup for 2023. The festival will be returning to regular venue the Odeon Great Northern in Manchester on 6th – 8th October to showcase the best in genre cinema.

Never screened outside of Japan, and believed lost for nearly 30 years, Banmei Takahashi’s 1988 classic, Door, combines deadpan domestic comedy, chilling stalker thriller and baroquely bloody home invasion horror. It finally had its international premiere at Bifan in South Korea in July, and Grimmfest are delighted to be hosting the first UK screening.

Kenichi Ugana’s Love Will Tear US Apart encompasses dark and deadly romance, satiric slasher movie, psychological thriller and even some martial arts mayhem. Grimmfest is delighted to be hosting the UK premiere in Manchester, birthplace of Joy Division, whose music inspired the film’s title.

Mikhail Red’s Filipino psychological thriller Deleter (UK premiere) follows an overworked,...

Our friends at Grimmfest, the genre film festival in Manchester, England, have unveiled the lineup for this year's edition.    Grimmfest has already announced Banmei Takahashi's unearthed 1988 classic, Door, Kenichi Ugana's Love Will Tear Us Apart and Raymond Wood's Faceless After Dark would be at the festival.   To those three films they have added Isaac Ezban's great fairy tale horror Evil Eye, Jenn Wexler's terrfic sophomore film, The Sacrifice Game, the pitch black comedy The Coffee Table and quite possibly the most unsettling puppet film we've experienced Abruptio.   Check the complete lineup below. Full festival passes are now available.    Grimmfest Announce Full 2023 Lineup   Grimmfest, Manchester's International Festival of Fantastic Film, are delighted to announce their full feature film lineup for 2023. The festival will be returning to regular...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Director Evan Marlowe pulls just the right strings for the uniquely disturbing horror trip that is Abruptio. Integrating life-like puppets into an all too real world, Marlowe explores the darker depths of the human experience in a film viewers surely won’t forget.

Down on his luck Les Hackel (James Marsters) can’t catch a break. In his 30’s and single, Les lives with his parents, can’t escape his monotonous office job, and struggles with an alcohol addiction. If that wasn’t enough, things take a turn for the worse when his buddy Danny (Jordan Peele) reveals explosive devices have been sewn into the necks of the working class. As long as unlucky carriers do exactly as they are instructed to, the bombs won’t detonate. However, the tasks given aren’t as simple as taking the trash out. Les is thrown into a world of violent, murderous crime...

Written by Gary Smart, Neil Morris | Directed by Christopher Griffiths, Gary Smart

Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story picks up with a 12-year-old Robert being sent to theatre camp getting attention from girls and being complimented by talk show host Steve Allen. That, especially the female attention, pointed him toward his career. And really, what better motivation can a young man have?

Best known for playing Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, Robert Englund already had a long history in the genre. dating back to Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive in 1976. Who could forget his entrance announcing “My name’s Buck, and I’m here to fuck!” and the criminally underrated Dead and Buried in 1981 as well as Galaxy of Terror and a host of others. And it’s continued well past his time as Freddy, most recently doing voice acting in the bizarre puppet film Abruptio.

Les looks in the rear view mirror

There are any number of animated films released each year, often critically acclaimed and welcomed by the public, yet there are still very few works out there which really make use of puppets. Assorted Muppet ventures, Labyrinth and The Happytime Murders rely on supplementing them with live action performances. The Dark Crystal and its Netflix series prequel are widely celebrated for what they manage to achieve, yet have inspired few imitations – perhaps not surprising given the scale of work required. In 2021, Frank & Zed made an impact on the horror scene, but didn’t really have the writing to back up its craft. 2023’s Abruptio is something else, and suggests that the puppet film has finally come of age.

Following a man who, when he wakes yup one day with a bomb implanted in his neck and starts receiving disturbing orders, wonders if he picked.

The Lighthouse International Film Festival have announced their Darkhouse programming block for this year's festival on Long Beach Island, New Jersey.    Our friend Ted Geoghegan's film Brooklyn 45 is one of four U.S. feature films in this year's lineup. The other three homegrown films include the unsettling life-sized puppet flick, Abruptio, animated dark fantasy, Unicorn Boy, and haunted adventure flick, Ghost Babe. The lone international title in the block is Enter Mycel from Austrian director Matt Kiel.    There will also be a special screening of Niels Arden Oplev's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Write ups about all five films are included in the announcement that follows.    2023 Lighthouse Film Festival Announces Darkhouse Programming   Fifteenth Edition of Premiere East Coast Film Festival Reveals...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The Lighthouse International Film Festival has announced their second edition of Darkhouse this afternoon, a genre-centric screening category focused on the best in boundary-pushing horror, science fiction, and fantasy cinema.

The festival’s Darkhouse program, which will take place June 7-11 on Long Beach Island, NJ, will showcase five new features, one special spotlight screening, and 28 short films.

Selected titles include Ted Geoghegan’s SXSW hit Brooklyn 45, about a group of veterans who gather for a séance at the end of World War II; Evan Marlowe’s mannequin horror film Abruptio, featuring the voices of Jordan Peele, James Marsters, and Robert Englund; and Matt Kiel’s animated dark fantasy Unicorn Boy, starring Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford, and Harold Perrineau. The programming block will also feature a special screening of 2009’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo with director Niels Arden Oplev in attendance.

In addition to their Darkhouse category,...

Abruptio Brings Puppets to Fantaspoa After Winning Audience Award for Best FX at Panic Fest Puppet Horror Film Screens Next in Porto Alegre Featuring the Voices of James Marsters, Jordan Peele, Hana Mae Lee, Robert Englund, Sid Haig, Christopher McDonald & Rich Fulcher Screens April 28 and 30 ““Abruptio” is astonishing — a film full of …

The post Fantaspoa: Puppet Horror Abruptio Heads to Brazil After Nabbing Audience Award at Panic Fest appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

"I just need to stay alive long enough to figure this out..." A promo trailer has debuted for a very strange indie film titled Abruptio, made by a filmmaker named Evan Marlowe. After years in production, Abruptio finally had its world premiered at the Santa Monica Film Festival in January. It is now screening virtually at Cinejoy this month, before stopping by a few other genre festivals this year. No release date is set. "Comedy, mystery, blood, A-List voices, action, puppets combine in the first-of-its-kind surrealistic horror-thriller." Les Hackel is a guy down on his luck who wakes to find an explosive device has been implanted in his neck. Abruptio uses the voices of James Marsters as Les, Hana Mae Lee, Jordan Peele (!!), Christopher McDonald, Robert Englund (aka the original Freddy), Darren Darnborough, Rich Fulcher, and the iconic Sid Haig in one of his final roles. Marlowe wants people to...

The In Memoriam section of the Academy Awards is an annual acknowledgement of industry figures who died in the previous year. This year’s rundown, however, has people talking for its high number of glaring omissions. Audiences picked up on several prominent names left off the reel, such as Luke Perry, Cameron Boyce and Jan-Michael Vincent, and one oversight that has genre fans particularly incensed was that of Sid Haig.

Haig, who sadly passed away in September, may not be a name that every film fan can immediately place, but he’s highly regarded among the genre community for a career that spanned sixty years and is approaching 150 separate credits. And his exclusion, whether by intent or oversight, is being taken as a further example of the horror genre being treated with disdain by those who make ‘proper’ and ‘true’ cinema.

I hate to bitch about the In Memoriam segment...

September 2019 brought with it the sad passing of actor and genre cinema legend Sid Haig, who’s perhaps most well known for playing Captain Spaulding from 2003’s House of 1000 Corpses and 2005’s The Devil’s Rejects. And in the recent 3 From Hell, the psychotic clown got to make one final appearance, though it wasn’t terribly substantial. Instead, Haig had a drastically reduced role when compared to the previous two outings, with Richard Brake’s Foxy becoming the new third member of the deadly trio.

It was certainly disappointing for fans to see the actor used so sparingly, but during the press tour for the threequel, director Rob Zombie had explained that Haig’s health was quickly deteriorating – which led to the reduced role – and that 3 From Hell was the horror icon’s final film. But as pointed out by the folks over at ScreenRant, this simply isn’t true.

Last month saw the sad passing of actor and genre cinema legend Sid Haig, whose most famous role just might be that of Captain Spaulding from 2003’s House of 1000 Corpses and 2005’s The Devil’s Rejects. With the recent 3 From Hell, the psychotic clown was able to make one final appearance, but to the disappointment of some viewers, the character effectively took on a supporting part, with Richard Brake’s Foxy serving as the new third member of the film’s titular trio.

As director Rob Zombie explained to Entertainment Weekly last month, Haig’s part was significantly reduced due to the actor’s declining health. And in a more recent interview with Kerrang!, the filmmaker and frequent Haig collaborator recalled how they anticipated the backlash but felt they made the right decision:

“It was kind of a drag, because I knew people would wonder about that. And especially, you...

This past weekend, we lost a cult horror icon.

Sid Haig, the man best known as Rob Zombie’s murderous clown across The Devil’s Rejects and House Of 1000 Corpses, passed away at the age of 80, sending the Internet into a state of mourning. Taking to Instagram, Haig’s wife Susan L. Oberg offered what was perhaps the perfect send-off, all the while asking for privacy and respect in their time of loss.

In her statement, Olberg admitted that Haig’s death came as a shock to the entire family. The cult performer had initially suffered an accident that put him in the ICU a fortnight ago, though appeared to be making a recovery in time for the arrival of Rob Zombie’s 3 From Hell, in which he reprised his role as Captain Spaulding.

Alas, the long-in-development horror sequel will now be remembered as one of Sid Haig’s final films,...

Jordan Peele, one half of the great comedy duo Key and Peele, has unexpectedly entered a new arena: the horror genre. In addition to his forthcoming fright flick Get Out -- a "satirical" horror film starring Daniel Kaluuya, Catherine Keener and Alison Williams that Peele wrote and directed for Blumhouse -- he's now been added to the cast of Abruptio, a horror effort in which the characters are "performed entirely with lifelike puppets," according to the film's official Facebook page. Abruptio comes from the mind of writer-director Evan Marlowe, whose resume literally includes a short film entitled Brests of the Southern Wild (he's also helmed a couple features). It will also feature the talents of horror icons Robert Englund and Sid Haig, among others. Here's the logline: A man discovers a sinister race of beings is manipulating mankind to cause chaos. He must uncover their plan before the explosive they've implanted in his neck detonates. Peele has opened up about this love for the horror genre in previous interviews, telling Rotten Tomatoes last year: "I’m obsessed with the link between horror and comedy. I think they’re very close. They’re both about getting a very physical kind of reaction. It’s about tension and it’s about the release of tension." Abruptio is expected for release sometime in 2018. (via Bloody Disgusting)...

We return with another edition of the Indie Spotlight, highlighting the recent independent horror news sent our way. Today’s feature includes first details on The Ride, Abruptio, and Howard Lovecraft & the Three Kingdoms hardback graphic novel, a trailer for Find Me and Trauma Dolls, casting news on Bad Kids Go 2 Hell, and much more:

New Casting Details for Bad Kids Go 2 Hell: “In Bad Kids Go to 2 Hell, it’s four years later and a new group of students has been placed in Saturday detention at snooty Crestview Academy. After one of the kids locks away the teacher assigned to watch them, the five of them very quickly find their ranks dwindling as each meets a gruesome fate. They may make it out of the library, but with a new threat revealing itself around every hallway, is there enough time and resources for at least one...