Review: The Happytime Murders

The Happytime Murders
Cert: 15 / 91 mins / Dir. Brian Henson / Trailer



Imagine being a set-hand on Brian Henson's The Happytime Murders. You're pretty low down the ladder but it's your first job on an actual movie and you're just excited to be there. This is where the magic happens. It's Tuesday and a scene is being filmed where two Muppets™-style puppets are noisily having sex in an office with a frosted-glass door and windows. The police are talking to a secretary (played by Maya Rudolph) outside the office, who's acting as if everything's normal. The male puppet 'pulls out' and, while the audience don't see his penis, he proceeds to ejaculate all over the office. This takes the form of silly-string, which is effectively a visual punchline to the joke. It's funny because they're puppets.

But this is a gross-out comedy from (among others) H.Brothers, starring Melissa McCarthy, and the audience have expectations. So the ejaculation continues. The people working on the set (yourself included) can imagine the tears of hilarity running down the faces of the audience as they watch this. But that's not enough. Director Brian Henson wants his cast to ad-lib their lines, looking for that elusive off-the-cuff comedy gold which often can't be captured in the writers-room. As set-hand, it's your job to clean the office-interior set so the crew can run again. And so they do. Noisy sex noises and silly-string resume. This means that in the new take, the distinct pattern sprayed on the door and windows will be noticeably different when edited into the original shot as one continuous sequence, but the director is sure this won't be noticed by the crowd having a good time on a Friday night. It's all good.

Then Brian wants to go again. To get more quality improvisation. Clean the windows, clean the door, sit back down. Action. Screaming, ejaculation, a different array of puppet jizz. That wasn't enough. Let's do one more take. Wiping, action, screaming, jizz. No, again. Wipe. Action. Scream. Jizz. Again. Again? Surely the comedy-well has to be dry by now? Surely these shots can't be intercut with the broken continuity of the silly-string jizz? Yes they can. Again. Wipe. Action. Scream. Jizz. Wipe. Action. Scream. Jizz. Everyone on-set is finding this hilarious. You see, it's funny because they're puppets. That may look like silly-string, but in the final movie it'll be jizz. Jizz is funny. Puppet-jizz is hilarious. Brian isn't quite happy with that last take. He thinks we could get more. You reach for your cloth.

You're just glad to be working in the film industry.
Your family are so proud your dream's come true.
You'll screenshot your name in the credits to go on Facebook.

---

Anyway, I went to watch The Happytime Murders, the comedically tone-deaf movie that can't tell the difference between a punchline and a profanity! The film which takes an interesting concept then grinds it straight down to the lowest common denominator of dick-jokes and witless improv. The USP - of humans and puppets interacting in a straight plot-driven story, with the difference between them noted and worked into the script as social segregation - is largely abandoned after ten minutes when everyone realises it's just easier to hope for a laugh by swearing. The first punchline of the movie is "well fuck you". Melissa McCarthy's first line contains the word "fuck", her last contains "asshole". The film's not a particularly great pastiche on either the buddy-cop nor film noir-genres, and has nothing else to say in the meanwhile*¹.

Credit where it's due though - the puppeteering itself is pretty great. From the very first scene, I had no trouble at all in buying the felt denizens as their own separate characters. They're just characters who are as annoying as the ones played by humans.

Still, it's always nice to see Melissa McCarthy outmatched in terms of comic timing by a puppet.

---

Imagine putting the "asshole says what" joke into your 15-rated movie, in 2018. Imagine putting the "asshole says what" joke into your movie twice, because you want the second one to act as a callback, like you invented it. Then imagine having one of your characters stopping to explain the "asshole says what" joke.

Imagine looking in the mirror every day and seeing Brian Henson.

Ted. And The Heat.



It isn't.



It isn't.



It isn't.



That's fairly likely.



There isn't.



Level 1: Disney-era Nien Nunb is a puppet performer in this. For shame.





*¹ Typical scene-ending punchlines include: "Fuck you" (yes, again), "You bit my dick" and "First time I've knocked a guy out with his balls". I don't want to come off as a prude, here. I'm not. My own language is generally quite horrific in relaxed company, as is my sense of humour. But swearing isn't the same as wit. The general level here is just bad writing and/or bad improv. Still, the crowds like it, I suppose? Well, not the crowd in my Friday screening, there were five of us. But it's been out since Monday so I imagine it was packed until Thursday. ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
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