Director: Jon Bristol

Cast: Manda Vasas, Nick Foreman, Mike Finland

Production Company: Elmwood Productions

Runtime: 61 minutes

Kermit, I’ve a feeling we’re not on The Muppet Show anymore! Horror is a very flexible genre. Almost anything can happen and quite often, it does. Director Jon Bristol shows us why there isn’t anything happy about dead puppets in his film Head (2015).

In the movie, a group of young people go on a weekend camping trip in a remote part of New England. They meet up with another camper, who tells them that a brutal series of murders took place there a few years ago. All of the victims were viciously beheaded…

Sounds like a typical slasher flick, doesn’t it? Well, there is one significant difference. All of the characters in this film are portrayed by puppets! You’d think this would make the film a comedy, but much of what happens plays out just like any other horror movie.

The movie is loaded with profanity, violence, nudity, and gore. So, despite the puppets, this one is obviously not meant for children. In fact, some of the circumstances seem more shocking because they’re happening to puppets! It’s all a little on the weird side…

In some ways, this film reminded me of Peter Jackson’s Meet the Feebles (1989). Both are adult-oriented, but could be confused with a kids show at first glance. The puppets were all designed and built by Bristol and look similar to Jim Henson’s Muppets.

Graveyard Gil’s Midnight Thrills is a late night horror show that opens the movie. Gil first introduces a short story called The Walking Path. It features eyeless zombie puppets and some recorded dialogue from Night of the Living Dead (1968).

This is followed by another short entitled Head, which tells the story of the original group that was killed in the forest. Once those tales are out of the way, the rest of the movie focuses on the newcomers to the woods. This format and the film’s short run time keeps things moving pretty briskly.

Stay tuned during the closing credits for a lot of cool photographs and some thoughtful text messages. Head takes your typical expectations surrounding puppets and tosses them into the ringer. Expect them to come out a little on the bloody side…

– John Migliore

For more information on the film, check out the links below…

Official Trailer

IMDb Page

Official Website

Facebook Page