Ever wonder what it'd be like to splice the minds of Jim Henson and Irvine Welsh together and then shove said Frankenstinian mockery of humanity into the body of a feeble foppish freak of a Kiwi? Well, shake hands with New Zealand native Peter Jackson you sick motherfuckers.
A long time friend of H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. through his films Bad Taste and Dead Alive (along with The Frighteners here at the Tomb), Mr. Jackson takes a break from extreme horror to bring us something else: a puppet show BEYOND the moral limits you humans know as "extreme"! Many critics have called Meet the Feebles, "The Muppets in acid", and for once I tend to agree with their mainstream cornholing, sell-out selves!
The basic premise behind Meet the Feebles plays like this: the cast of the popular family television show "The Fabulous Feebles Variety Hour" is preparing for the night of their lives as the show goes live for a one hour special. If things go well they'll all be stars and their producer, Mr. Bletch, will be VERY rich. If things go badly, well, let's just say that nobody will be alive afterwards to worry about rebuilding their illustrious careers. So, while all these masterful thespians hone their craft and practice their lines, we get to see the truth behind the show as each of the actors and actresses put their vices and crooked dealings on display for us like a bad soap opera. The real twist? EVERY cast member is either a puppet, or a person in a big puppet costume (like those monster guys from Jim Henson), all of which are treated as if they were really walking talking animal-humanoids... I told ya Jackson was messed up... and I ain't talkin' 'bout Tito!
Our Feebs include: Bletch the walrus - big fat producer of the show and criminal mastermind; Eyes the fly - the tabloid reporter who will do anything to get the "poop" on the Feebles cast; Robert the porcupine - the sympathetic new guy who suffers some of the worst from his new co-workers, but winds up finding true love and is one of the few survivors in the end; Heidi the Hippo - big fat starlet who truly loves Bletch, but winds up going insane and ventilating the majority of her corrupt cohorts before heading to prison and getting rehabilitated; Sid the elephant - a juggling phenom and supposed father to Sandy the chicken's child (this is very funny to see, but very scary to think about); several drunk balls of fuzz (I have no idea what they are); Harry the rabbit - the show's most popular star who's also a nymphomaniac and may or may not have "the AIDS"; Samantha the cat - a sleazy pussy that's been gleaming Bletch's bone to help advance her career; Trevor the evil rat - who's got his mangy yellow fangs in a little bit of everything; Dennis the perverse ant-eater - he's got a "nose" for sex (trust me on this one); a COCK-roach whipping a big fat cow in an amateur dungeon porn; Cedric the militant warthog - Bletch's second hand man, err, pig; a contortionist with his head stuck up his rectum ("damn near killed him!"... very few people probably got that joke); Sebastian the fox - the show's director, who only really gets his chance to shine at the finale, with his "Ode to Sodomy" number (who ever thought anal violation would go so well set to modern tap?!); and my personal favorite, Wynyard the frog - the group's knife thrower and resident pill-popper, who suffers from frequent 'Nam flashbacks! To add to this colorful cast of miscreants, there's also coke dealing and vomiting on the 18th hole, "nasal sex", an all rabbit orgy, drug deals gone horribly wrong (and violent), and 8ft tall crabmen... which just add to the evidence that Peter Jackson and his buddies are lunatics.
The plot is very basic, ending in an orgy of carnage, bloodshed, and show tunes. The tragic heroine Heidi, scorned by her beloved Bletch, goes on a killing spree where she blows away scores of her fellow Feebles with an anti-tank gun before finally giving up and going to prison. All this because her hubby was cheating on her. The lesson here? Ladies: don't get fat. Men: if you're gonna cheat on your woman, make sure you do it with a chick who can keep her cake hole shut about it!
If you look hard enough, you can probably find at least one example for each of the 7 deadly sins amongst these freakish foam constructs. Honestly, you won't have to look THAT hard, as you'll probably pick 'em all out within the first 20 minutes. Drugs, sex, organized crime, murder, inter-species breeding, rape, fecal consumption, a sing and dance number about sodomy, bullet riddled muppet mass genocide, gluttony, greed, Russian Roulette, deceit, and the baddest ass game of golf this side of Outlaw Golf on the X-Box! Meet the Feebles indulges in pretty much any and all vices you can think of, then throws in a few more just to make sure it offends each and every viewer in one way or another!... no wonder it took four writers to put something this offensive together...
Why Jackson made such a movie is unknown to me. Possibly as his twisted expression of an abusive childhood wrought with sexual abuse and drug addled parents? Maybe as a testament about the true sins hiding behind the scenes of Hollywood? Then again, maybe it's just because he likes to frighten children. Either way, Meet the Feebles is one flick that leaches onto your cerebral cortex, sticks in it's teeth, and stays with you, picking away at your gray matter for the rest of your movie lovin' life! And no, no amount of medication or surgery can remove it, it's there for good! Not to worry though, it's not ALL bad, there are benefits, kinda like Brain Damage's own brain jizzing space parasite Alymer...
Basically, this movie is hard to describe and I can only sum it up as 94 minutes of deranged perversion that makes Requiem For a Dream look like an after school special. Don't avoid it kids, madness is all engulfing and even warm at times...
Don't be fooled though as Mr. Peter Jackson isn't always on the path of evil and splatter, having done a legitimate film or two or three or four in his days. In addition to his out-of-the-ordinary tale of a special love between two girls (Heavenly Creatures), he's also recently given to us his Academy Award winning Lord of the Rings trilogy (in case no one's ever heard of those little films...), and is currently working on his own version of the classic King Kong...
Yep, behind that asylum exterior lurks an artist with a grasp far beyond that of most mortals, likely including yourself, provided you're reading this and picked up on that... All in all, these Feebles guys would kick the shit out of Kermit the Frog, an ant-eater's nose penetrating a heifer’s poon is a scary sight to behold, and Peter Jackson should either be given a Nobel Prize or a lifetime ticket to a padded cell. Will he ever return to these perverse roots after so much Hollywood blockbuster fame and recognition by the so-called "Academy"? Well, only time will tell, as we keep our collective fingers crossed for Meet the Feebles II: Feeble Harder... featuring Elijah Wood as Robert and Christopher Lee as Bletch!
