Dr. Squid's B-Movie Reviews: Review: Meet The Feebles

(these reviews are reprinted from the Dr. Squid zine, originally published in the late 1990s through the early 2000s)

For those of you who may not know who Peter Jackson is (editor’s note - this review was written in the mid-90s, long before Lord of the Rings), he is a New Zealand director whose odd films include the zombie ultra-gorefest Dead Alive (originally released as Brain Dead) and the excellent but creepy Heavenly Creatures. An earlier film, Meet The Feebles, was the darling of bootleggers for a long time. I read bits and pieces about it, making it this legendary unobtainable film that could only be found locked away in the bedrooms of geeky videophiles, stacked along with tapes of Jackie Chan movies (from before Rumble In The Bronx was a hit the US), Italian cannibal flicks and the director's cuts of The Abyss and Army of Darkness. It's reputation of sick-and-twistedness had only grown because most people hadn't actually seen it. Lo and behold one day, a single copy of it actually showed up at the local Hollywood Video! With a simple rental transaction, I was about to experience the depravity I had only read about.

Suffice to say, this weird flick was everything I had read about. This is basically an unrated version of The Muppet Show, detailing the behind-the-scenes and backstage antics that occur as The Feebles prepare to put on the evening's big variety show. The Feebles basically are muppets; there's an overeating pink hippo who's having an affair with the theater owner, a blue walrus, who himself is boffing one of the dancers. Meanwhile, there's a rat whose making a porno flick in the basement with a cow decked out in bondage gear. Toss in a knife-throwing frog who's a dope-addicted Vietnam vet, a flamingly gay stage manager (who performs a wonderful musical number about his favorite sexual activity) and a blue elephant who got his chicken girlfriend knocked up and you start to get a picture of this twisted tale.

The protagonist of the story is a wide-eyed young hedgehog who is super cute and immediately falls in love with a dancer when he starts on the show. Elsewhere, the wacky rabbit, known for his sexual prowess, apparently comes down with AIDS, while the boss walrus and his bulldog henchman are out scoring some cocaine. The grossest character by far is an annoying fly who's a gossip columnist for the local newsrag. He buzzes around digging up dirt on the Feebles and is once seen hanging out in the toilet, eating his dinner with a spoon. I hope you know what I mean because I'm not going into anymore detail here. Suffice to say, this is one bizarre movie mixing puppets with sick, dark humor and a healthy dose of violence.

Now I can say that I have seen the legendary Meet The Feebles and it truly is a sick and twisted movie. I was repulsed but strangely fascinated. If you can handle really, really, really dark humor than rent this flick (if you can find it!).