Meet the
Feebles (1989)
By Caroline Rennox
‘Not your average, ordinary people.’
Re-watching Meet the Feebles was a bit of
strange experience. I’m sure I had fond memories of watching it first time
round but watching it again, there was very little to enjoy.
The film features the same
hallmarks of the other early Jackson movies in that goes full out to provoke
laughter and disgust in equal measure from its audience. There’s a rabbit with
an STD, a literal muckraking journalist bluebottle and a knife-throwing frog
suffering from flashbacks to ‘Nam, but these basic ideas never seem to be
fleshed out into actual jokes. Like many Muppets parodies - see ‘The Fuzz’ - the
film seems to rely on a dark and distasteful version of Hensons’ sweet-natured
dreamers as being inherently funny.
Like Bad Taste, the general plot of the film
is pretty straightforward - The Feebles’ cast are trying to put on a show to
save the company but everything keeps going wrong. The main storyline follows
Heidi the hippo - once the star of the show but now an overweight, has-been
with a dated routine. Bullied and laughed at behind her back, Heidi eventually
snaps and murders the whole cast with a machine gun in the film’s bloody
finale.
Maybe
it’s the fact that the movie is so visually un-appealing which sucks a bit of
the joy out of it for me. Much of the film is dark and distinctly under-lit.
Movies which rely so heavily on puppetry and practical effects are notoriously
difficult, and it may that some of the dim and hazy look to the film is just
covering the seams.
There are a few bright spots to be had -
Sebastian the fox’s showstopping musical number about the joys of sodomy did
earn a bit of a giggle from me but then it does feature huge phallic columns
spurting glitter all over the stage. The entire thing is ridiculously over the
top and it helps that he’s one of the few characters who aren’t completely
irredeemable.
Overall
the film is clearly the weakest of the three. The script was re-written rather
hastily at the last minute and the cumbersome effects led to the whole thing
going over budget and over schedule - a familiar story for anyone who saw the
similarly disappointing Hobbit trilogy. technically ambitious but ultimately
not fulfilling.
The film does have a bit of a cult following
and whether or not it’s funny is obviously highly subjective. Jackson has
described the film as a savage satire but for me any satirical point is lost
amidst the need to shock more than anything else. While I can’t wholeheartedly
recommend it, I would say it’s worth watching even purely out of curiosity. Who
knows? Maybe you’ll discover that aardvark on bovine nasal porn is the
hilarious kink you never knew you had.
Meet The Feebles (1989) Trailer
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