Head (2015)

 

Director: Jon Bristol

Screenplay: Jon Bristol and J.R. Calvo

(Voice) Cast: Manda Vasas as Vicki; Nick Foreman as Tom; Mike Finland as Bruce; Sally Arlette-Garcia as Nelly; Ben Farley as Lenny; Jon Bristol as Joe

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #213

 

So Bigfoot has a goddamn driver's licence?

A slasher film cast entirely with puppets? Yes please, as Elmwood Puppets and director/co-writer Jon Bristol presents us with Head, a structurally curious production as before the main feature, we effectively get a separate piece by itself which needs to be reviewed by itself.

It introduces Graveyard Gil, a horror host puppet who leads in the main film Head, of campers in the woods of New England, who is a smarmy bastard and offers personalised dynamite alarm clocks to his viewers. He also has to delay the main feature due to his cousin Ernie, a talking can, being late. This leads a short film by producer Rich Passmore called The Walking Path, beginning with two male puppets watching Night of the Living Dead (1968), a classic but also a title in the public domain, allowing so many to take advantage of its lineage or have it in clips in their own films decades. This short is not very long at all, barring that it involves these puppets walking for food down a dark path at eight pm, only to encounter zombie puppets, which are creepier due to them having no eyes. Honestly, a zombie puppet film would have been interesting in itself, if that is a tangent for this film.

If there is a flaw with Head, it is that these segments do feel jarring, even if they are clearly meant to be here so the production could be feature length. They are a curious tangent, for a film only over sixty minutes, as whilst Head shows some very broad humour, it is a slasher film told in complete earnestness, with only the fact it is cast with puppets breaking the reality. Even that eventually becomes something a viewer can adapt to with ease. What happens if you recreate horror films with puppets? It is an interesting experience, following all the slasher tropes including all the casual chit-chat and banal conversation to set the premise up. The prologue within the main feature itself, where two women and two men are killed as a set-up, does suggest at first this could have been a comedy, but only because puppet sex when depicted is very bizarre, in a fully explicit way with female puppet nudity, but only because puppets usually star in children's productions in the stereotypical view of their acting choices, making such scenes almost a transgression. Taking it seriously in context of lurid eighties slashers however, in films which did the same thing with human actresses, it is less strange if a surprise. That it is the one thing which could turn this film into a parody¹ but the rest is entirely sincere.

Head does not become a joke, telling a slasher tale exactly as expected with the female protagonist to the dumb puppet jocks, to the point that hearing them arguing over not bringing the food and drinking all the beer, even telling each other to fuck off, feels more natural as beyond the cast, everything else about the production is a traditional micro budget genre film which never gives away a silly tone. The puppets themselves are well made too, with the actors also their puppeteer, which adds so much to the film. Elmwood Puppets have been in existence since 2001, so they have had a long time to hone their skills, something which means I really would like to see what the group does in their other productions².

It also helps that, whilst playing to the tropes, they have work around the puppets' limitations which changes what can be done in terms of slasher film clichés. On one hand you can be resourceful, such as have close-ups of a car to simulate driving, or closing in on a DIY store shelf with the camera when someone off-screen ominously buys an axe.  On the other hand, you cannot have chase scenes, unless you were to painstaking create them or have full sized costumes for close-ups, and have to rely on more dialogue to limit puppets' physical acting abilities. This is actually an advantage, and finally explains where my ambivalent attitude to slasher films always came from, in that like action films, scenes of kinetic event meant to cause an emotional reaction like chase scenes rather than dialogue or a narrative progression do not interest me in the slightest. The exceptions feel like they were carefully thought out or are bizarre. This is the reason why I grew to fully admire Halloween (1978), but John Carpenter created such a technically precise and incredible work, and why however I prefer the batshit and weirder entries in the sub-genre, or those with a lot more drama and story to them, hating when they clearly went for the cheap plot twist or a padded out chase scene.

In context of these restrictions is also that, rather than artificial environments, Head is shot in real locations including woodland, the territory frequently used in micro-budget productions but noticeable here in its use. Having this usual environment for this type of cinema with puppets adds a really distinct touch. Even one of the more exaggerated aspects, the surprising amount of puppet decapitation and gore, is contrasted by the actual ghoulishness of the content, especially when the leads finds a tree in the middle of the woods covering in eyeless decapitated puppet heads, the practical effects throughout literal as the cast were created too. [Major Spoilers] All in mind too that, involving puppet Satanists collecting eyeballs to evoke a demon, Head is still very much of the slasher genre in terms of its more exaggerated and odder narratives as they continued onwards, to the point that this retains all the pleasurable aspects of the horror sub-genre and jettisons those I never liked in structure. [Spoilers End]

Barring that prologue, which is an odd inclusion, I have to admire Head. A Kickstarter project, Jon Bristol build his own puppets, and it says so much of the film itself, despite its gore and tone³, that the end credits including him thanking his mother for letting him watch horror films when he was growing up. Despite the possible paradox of a horror film being recreated with puppets, which would usually suggest a parody or humour, that this is deathly serious in tone like other slasher films which is also a benefit. That this curious project also explained my relationship to slashers, and why some I adore are contrasted to those I have no interest in, is something I have to thank Bristol for as he finally pinpointed the problems and virtues for me, all from what he and the production (including the puppeteers) would have to work around. In fact, it suggests further experiments need to be made where we recreate genres with puppets, even with those I like as they are just to see what is boiled down when you have this restriction placed upon them and invention is required. A puppet mountain film, a la The Holy Mountain (1926) for example, or a puppet western. If you the reader actually read the notes below on my reviews, you already know a puppet porn film already exists, so that has already been covered, even if not for everyone...

 

=========

1) And this is not the first time either puppet sex is a concept, as Deep Throat director Gerard Damiano made Let My Puppets Come (1976), a hardcore film with human actors and puppets.

2) Their website can be found HERE if you the reader are interested.

3) There is some homophobic dialogue, which was the one unneeded aspect, even in mind of a bunch of puppet jocks naturally being jocks, and especially from who are ultimate revealed as the villains. Thankfully, this is not something to completely dismiss Head on, especially if it was simply the case of not trying to write characters that are all likable, just not carefully dealt with.