By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Danny Mulheron | Donna Ackersten | Mark Hadlow | Peter Vere-Jones | Ross Jolly | Stuart Devenie
Country: new_zealand
Year: 1989
Running time: 97
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097858/reference
Thom says: “This film was so over-the-top in so many delicious ways and it was totally unexpected. It’s currently unavailable on NetFlix but I came across it at my DVD store and since I’ve had such great luck in the past with pre-Fellowship of the Ring trilogy by Jackson I had to see it. BRAINDEAD, THE FRIGHTENERS, HEAVENLY CREATURES (featuring the early life of beloved mystery novelist Anne Perry whom I’ve read some 50 books by), & FORGOTTEN SILVER are all earlier films by Jackson that I loved & I’m also a huge KING KONG fan; I feel Jackson’s is the best version of “the Big Ape” far-and-away. So while expectations were there when I learned that it was a very dark comedy spin-off from Jim Henson Muppets with animal-figured puppets and people in animal costumes I had doubts. Not to worry, the film was perversely funny from the get-go. Where the Muppets are friendly, positive, naïve, & innocent Jackson’s Feebles are vice-ridden, negative, hateful, & self-serving. The story is about a theatre troupe that is going to star on live network television. But along the way we’re served date-rape, snuff films, explicit sex, back-stabbing, drug addiction, & violence. The star of the show is an overweight, ridiculously voluptuous hippopotamus named Heidi who is in love with her walrus manager (Bletch). During rehearsals when Heidi discovers that Bletch is cheating on her with a backstage hussy cat named Samantha all Hell breaks loose. Wikipedia relates that the title is a play on words of a 1944 film MEET THE PEOPLE, starring Lucille Ball. The ending is reminiscent of the 1974 film FEMALE TROUBLE, with Heidi imitating Divine. Jackson strews the film with small, delicious details. His imagination went wild and this early effort shows why he won the prestigious FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING franchise. 5 cats“