Frank & Zed, the debut feature from Puppetcore Films and writer/director/editor Jesse Blanchard, is a labor of love six years in the making. That this all-puppet horror movie exists at all, and at this level of technical quality, is something worth celebrating in and of itself. Fortunately, the movie's also quite entertaining, at least when it's focused on its titular monster duo.
Frank is a Frankenstein monster and Zed is a zombie. Hundreds of years ago, they served an evil overlord, but in the centuries since his downfall, they now serve each other in their otherwise-abandoned castle. Frank hunts critters in the woods to serve their brains to Zed, and Zed helps Frank recharge himself with lightning strikes. Their symbiotic relationship, which only ever becomes dysfunctional when their rotting bodies fail to function consistently, has a surprising amount of heart to it. Both puppets are impressive creations, monstrous yet weirdly cute (it definitely helps with the cute factor that Zed's garbled noises sound a lot like Stitch from Lilo & Stitch).
Much less appealing are the human characters. For one thing, there's too many of them for any individual personalities to really make a strong impression. For another, their puppets are a lot less polished and frankly uglier. It makes sense that a story where the monsters are ultimately the protagonists would intentionally make the humans unappealing, but the human-focused segments of the film are just a lot more boring, carried mainly by the uniformly gorgeous scenery. For the first hour of Frank & Zed, the monsters are captivating while the human bits might have you checking your watch.
These problems thankfully fade in the film's absolutely insane final act, where the movie finally delivers on the "orgy of blood" it's been promising. The hilariously violent fight scene is a great piece of Peter Jackson/Sam Raimi-esque "splatstick" filmmaking. The humans you never really cared about meet wacky gruesome ends, while the monsters you cared a lot about continue to be shockingly emotionally compelling.
Be sure to stick through the credits, which showcase the incredible behind-the-scenes work put into bringing these puppets to life. Frank & Zed might be inconsistent as a whole, but the sheer joy of its production is infectuous.
Frank & Zed is streaming as part of the Nightstream film festival through October 14.