Of the various streaming services out there, Tubi has only become more valuable to me over the past few years. One reason is that it’s free and always has been. It’s a service that has always made its money by playing advertisements since it launched. Now that other streaming services that cost money are playing ads before or during their programs (Peacock, Amazon, etc.), Tubi only looks better as a free service that is doing the same thing as the big names out there.

Another thing that Tubi is great for is finding random movies or TV shows you have never heard of. I have often joked among friends that it is the garbage bin for movies, especially of the horror variety. You can find some great trash on Tubi that you would not find anywhere else. Every once in a while, you might find a diamond in the rough. Every once in a while, you might find an interesting stop-motion movie, like Casa Lobo or The Pied Piper. Every once in a while, you might find something like Abruptio.

What Is It?

Les Hackel (James Marsters) is a recovering alcoholic who is having a rough time. His girlfriend dumped him. His job is unfulfilling. He’s still living with his parents well into his thirties. Life is far from great for Les, and something is clearly eating at him. One day, his friend, Danny (Jordon Peele), calls him over and tells him something shocking. A secret organization has installed bombs in their heads, and they have to obey the commands given to them or face certain death. His friend is supposed to kill Les, but he refuses and suffers the consequences. From there, Les is given explicit orders by this secret organization to commit heinous acts, which include mass murder and grinding up dead bodies. He commits more crimes and more acts that are gruesome and brutal to stay alive, while also slipping further into a void of disillusioned disdain for life. Along the way, he meets various misfits and odd individuals who either help or impede his random missions. All the while, there is a mystery about Les that demands he confess something, but he doesn’t know what that could be.

Also, all the people are either puppets or doubles with masks on.

What Makes It Stand Out?

I mean, it’s pretty obvious immediately when you look at any visuals from the movie. It’s a story that takes itself (mostly) seriously, even though all the characters are puppets or people wearing masks. The visuals of Abruptio immediately capture your attention just because it’s a movie that is trying something different from most others. It is also a movie that tries to push the envelope and goes hard with its horror. Spoilers ahead…

Mature Puppet Material

Les does some cruel and appalling things in this movie. When he is forced to murder a family of three, including their teenage daughter, it’s a serious and tense scene that involves some severe puppet-on-puppet violence with many futile pleas for mercy from the family members. Abruptio is full of disturbing sequences like this that go as hard as they can. In a different movie with just regular actors, scenes like this would be much more difficult to watch. It would be just as disturbing but even more unsettling if all we had was the audio of the scene and we were forced to use our imagination. However, it’s made a little more tolerable because the characters are all portrayed by puppets in this movie, and the violence is somewhat dampened by the obvious fakeness of everything, even though it’s still disturbing.

Due to Abruptio’s distinct choice in presenting its story, it creates something of a unique experience. Gory and disturbing scenes were more tolerable because I was never fully immersed, but that feels intentional. It’s strange that if this were an animated movie or stop-motion, I might have been more disturbed by the events that take place in Abruptio, but the puppet aesthetic makes everything a little less real. It’s almost an uncanny valley experience in that I can never take everything too seriously, even though the movie presents serious circumstances. It creates something like a cognitive dissonance that you don’t typically get with movies.

A Surprising Method of Filmmaking

If you visit the IMDB page for this movie, I bet you’ll be surprised by the list of actors involved with this project. Horror fans would likely recognize individuals like Robert Englund, James Marsters, Jordan Peele, and Sid Haig. The inclusion of Haig is particularly surprising because of the fact that he passed away in 2019, 4 years before Abruptio was released. That’s because the voices for this movie were actually recorded well ahead of time in 2015, and the puppets were created with the voices in mind after the fact. The voice lines were played on a loop for the puppeteers to lip sync to. It’s an interesting way to make a movie, which took the better part of 8 years to do, and took less than a million dollars to make, according to some sources.

Wild, Unpredictable Plot

To call Abruptio predictable would be an outright lie. I had no idea where this movie was going or what was going to happen next. I won’t get into specifics about what happens later on in the movie, but I’ll say that things only get stranger after Les’ initial murders. Where the conspiracy leads and what is the thing that really weighs on Les’ mind are somewhat wrapped up by the end, but leave lingering questions about what exactly transpired.

I am not entirely convinced that it sticks the landing, however. The story wraps up with a sequence that tells us more about Les as a person and why he might have been in a rut before all the craziness started. It’s a sequence that adds some meaning to the story in a way that works, but it also makes you question what exactly happened over the course of the film and what was real. The ending puts a decent cap on the whole plot, but it doesn’t explain enough to make it all make sense.

Worth a Watch?

Abruptio is a very unique experience. I can’t say that I really enjoyed watching it because it was an occasionally shocking and grotesque film with odd and raunchy humor that didn’t quite land every time. However, I was curious enough about what was happening that I wanted to see it through to its end. When the credits rolled, I didn’t regret watching it. I may be damning it with faint praise, but I simply mean to say that it’s not a film for everyone, and you might have to be in the right mood to actually enjoy it.

It may not always be on Tubi, but if and when it is, if you are looking for something strange in the realm of horror, you won’t find anything quite like Abruptio.

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