Film Review: The Happytime Murders – Guildford Odeon

Published on: 1 Sep, 2018
Updated on: 1 Sep, 2018

By Dennis Harvey-Hepherd

The Happytime Murders is a somewhat weird movie.

It puts Muppet-style characters into real life Los Angeles and makes them portray recognisable character types, familiar in so many previous genres.

However, be warned. This is not a film for children!

Imagine a “Blaxploitation” movie from the ‘70s, add a police procedural with a comedy buddy story and you have this film.

Such a mix with human actors alone would be strange, but with puppets basically taking the underclass character roles it works rather well.

The script is tightly written, full of humour and pathos. The human actors play their parts straight down the line. The puppets, created by the Henson studios, have realistic bodies and can be seen walking, running and engaging in other activities in a totally realistic way.

The humour ranges from laugh out loud to schoolchild sniggering and comes in large amounts.

All this together makes for a very enjoyable adult, guilty pleasure type experience.

Although I enjoyed this film, I know it won’t be for every taste, so I give it 4 stars out of five.