Being an animated horror thriller with a seriously surreal streak, my favourite flavour, Abruptio is a wild ride. Even for the open-minded, expecting anything. Puppet animation is often uncomfortable for many (how many of us have had the horrors from seeing Punch and Judy or The Sandman animation?), but here the comic yet slightly sinister aspect it brings that’s embedded in most of us from childhood is so severely at odds with the gratuitous violence and strong sexual elements it can’t fail to shock.

When I saw the title of this one I was sure I was in for a subtitled film. Spanish, or possibly Italian. But no; how wrong was I? It turns out Abruptio, written and directed by Evan Marlowe, is actually an American animated film; the first of this type, featuring life-size puppets with the voiceovers of a cast studded with gems.

Lester Hackel (James Marsters, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is a seemingly ordinary, early middle-aged nobody, stuck in a job he hates. Living at home with his vaguely naggy mother Doreen (Carole Ruggier) and unseen, barely heard dad Abe (played by Marlowe himself), he’s been ditched by his girlfriend and battling alcoholism. Musician Danny (Jordan Peele; Get Out, Nope) is Les’s best friend, and listens to his woes as a best friend should. But when Les receives a strange string of texts from him about a bomb being stitched into the back of his neck, Les realises he’s similarly afflicted. When Danny loses his head (literally) after finding himself unable to follow instructions hitherto unknown to Les, it becomes apparent there’s something bigger going on. Les begins to receive orders of his own, prompting him to do unspeakable things, and tell no-one. Or else, BANG.

Beginning with him leaving a suitcase emitting poison gas leading to the annihilation of the entire workforce at his office, every turn Les takes and people he encounters draws him more deeply into a gruesome nightmare of befuddlement. Along his path many other distressed and confused souls also have implanted bombs, among them Mr. Salk (Robert Englund; everyone’s favourite demon of darkness), Chelsea (Hana Mae Lee), and Sal Cheek (Sid Haig), an elderly farmer-cum stand-up comedian Les meets in a seedy strip joint. There’s also Police Chief Richter (Chris McDonald; who the eagle-eyed and old/sad enough (both of which I freely admit to being) may recognise as Goose from Grease 2).

All baffled as to why they’re there and what’s compelling them to do the terrible things expected of them, one factor is clear throughout; in a world apparently running riot, everyone is out for themselves above all else. And underneath it all is an undercurrent of something else; something Les needs to accept responsibility for, yet doesn’t know what. Team America: World Police and the BBC’s Spitting Image touch similar nerves, but this is in a league of its own, and it’s not just self-indulgent splatter. For starters, it’s not funny, nor is it meant to be. Perhaps the awareness of that from very early on in the film gives us a clue as to the smack in the face it intends to deliver; and deliver it does.

The whole here is definitely more than the sum of its parts. The work that’s gone into Abruptio deserves infinite respect, and it has true purpose (which I’m not going to tell you about). It’s not for the faint of heart; once you start, you’re in it till the end. But if you’re fainthearted, you wouldn’t be here.