Film

Meet the Feebles

Peter Jackson's anarchic 1989 puppet musical is a gleefully depraved backstage comedy where felt animals scheme, suffer, and destroy each other in the hours before a variety show. It's deliberately obscene and deeply committed to its chaos—crude, inventive, frequently hilarious, occasionally gross. For viewers who think Jim Henson was holding back.

TMDb rating3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you have a taste for puppet-theatre sendups that go straight for the bodily and the grotesque, where cheerful musical numbers keep undercutting the filth, and a backstage show-business frame gives the chaos a shape.

Skip it if you find puppets doing grim, graphic things unfunny, since the film leans on shock, bodily grossness and nastiness for long stretches and its jokes can feel repetitive over time.

What it asks of you: Ninety-three minutes of deliberate bad taste and ragged low-budget puppetry, with little rest between gags, and you need a strong stomach for it.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Muppet Show1976

The obvious ancestor: variety show format, backstage chaos, distinct puppet personalities, and surprisingly adult humour beneath the colour. Jackson clearly studied how to make felt funny.

But Genuinely slow in places, and the variety acts themselves can drag. Less inspired than the best Feebles sequences.

The Muppet Show poster

Happiness1998

Todd Solondz's masterpiece of suburban depravity—dark comedy about terrible people doing terrible things, shot through with moments of genuine pathos. Same anarchic energy, human instead of puppets.

But Deeply upsetting in ways that linger. This is not a film you enjoy so much as endure and think about for days.

Happiness poster

After Hours1985

Scorsese's acid-trip comedy of escalating chaos in downtown New York. Funny, surreal, visually inventive, and committed to the idea that everything will go worse. Peak scrappy indie energy.

But Aggressively unpleasant, and the women are mostly written as obstacles. Feels dated in ways that undercut the humour.

After Hours poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Meet the Feebles

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail1975

Both are comedies that destroy their own logic rather than defend it. Python proved that comedy doesn't need narrative coherence—Feebles learned that lesson and made it violent and obscene.

Abrasive, silly, gleefully willing to wreck any scene for a joke. Python found the same irreverent energy Feebles channels—comedy as chaos rather than setup and payoff. Peak anarchic comedy structure.

But Some sketches go nowhere; the repetition wears on some viewers. Feels very of its moment, which isn't everyone's moment.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail poster
More like this (8)

Repo Man1984

Alex Cox's cult punk comedy about LA's underworld has the same DIY invention, anarchic plotting, and willingness to be stupid and smart simultaneously. Genuinely weird and genuinely funny.

But The pacing is deliberately fractured, and some gags land better than others. Not interested in explaining itself.

Repo Man poster

Eating Raoul1982

A married couple murder swingers to fund their dream house. Transgressive, absurdist, and genuinely clever—low-budget mayhem that invents its own logic and commits to it completely.

But The satire isn't always clear; sometimes you're watching trash and unsure if that's intentional. Moves slowly in stretches.

Eating Raoul poster

Heathers1989

Dark high-school comedy about social cruelty and murder, with genuine wit and genuine darkness. The tonal balance feels unstable in exactly the right way—comedy and cruelty indistinguishable.

But The satire requires you to already dislike the characters it's mocking, which not everyone will feel instantly.

Heathers poster

Blue Velvet1986

Lynch's masterpiece finds horror and bizarre comedy in suburban underbelly. Like Feebles, it's grotesque, funny, and structured so you never know which reaction it wants from you moment to moment.

But Deliberately slow and oblique. The sexual violence is hard to watch, and the plotting serves mood over narrative logic.

Blue Velvet poster

Pee-wee's Big Adventure1985

Burton's debut is anarchic puppet-logic applied to live action—cheerful, visually inventive, committed to absurdity. Same sense that the world operates on cartoon rules.

But Gentle and whimsical in ways Feebles absolutely isn't. If you want transgression, this will feel toothless.

Pee-wee's Big Adventure poster

Greaser's Palace1972

Adolfas Mekas's surrealist-grindhouse masterpiece: a young Jesus wanders through a degraded future landscape. As committed to grotesque comedy and boundary-breaking as Feebles, even more transgressive.

But The quality is deliberately rough, the logic is dreamlike rather than narrative, and it requires real patience. Could feel like a chore.

Greaser's Palace poster

Being John Malkovich1999

Both use fantastic premises to explore a backstage world of desperate artists. Both accept their absurd logic completely and explore its implications seriously. Both are about people trapped in awful situations by their own needs.

Kaufman's surreal backstage story about a weird theatre troupe and obsession over identity. Bizarre, smart, and genuinely inventive—the puppet-logic of narrative used to get at something real underneath.

But Precious and clever in ways some find irritating. The surrealism serves the director's ego rather than character or story.

Being John Malkovich poster

Possession1981

Both films use grotesquerie not for shock value but as a physical expression of emotional collapse. Both are visceral, ugly, and committed to the idea that certain feelings require obscene images. Both would be unthinkable from mainstream studios.

Andrzej Żuławski's Berlin-set nightmare about a disintegrating marriage and cosmic horror. Grotesque, operatic, frequently obscene, visually astonishing. Like Feebles, it's transgressive but means every transgression.

But The violence and sexual content are genuinely difficult. The editing and sound design are deliberately disorienting—you leave feeling assaulted, not entertained.

Possession poster

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