Film Preview: The Happytime Murders (2018)

Page Revisions:

(May 27, 2018) Original
(August 19, 2018) New Trailers (#2-#3) / New Posters (#2-#7)

Release Date:

August 17, 2018

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “When the puppet cast of an ’80s children’s TV show begins to get murdered one by one, a disgraced LAPD detective-turned-private eye puppet takes on the case.”

Poster Rating: D / C+ / B / C+ (4)

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Review: (#1) A Muppet with a gun and Melissa McCarthy looking almost nothing like herself. This simplistic design is dull and ugly and while the felt-like word “Murders” in the title is the most inventive thing present, it’s otherwise uninspiring.

(#2) While it does set the film into a seedy environment, it feels rather dull in terms of its visual staticness and color dullness. (#3) This is a far more effective poster with visual balance throughout the design, giving us foreground and background details that give it depth and place. (#4-#7) These posters seem to try to create a series of vignettes that give the film place and substance, but never feel organic.

Trailer Rating: B+ / B / B

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Review: (#1) As poorly structured as the trailer is, you can’t help but being enthused and weirded out by the concept, which includes our favorite Muppet critters in most un-Muppet like events, especially that final scene, which does play a bit too long and ruins part of the humor of that scene for when it shows up in the film itself.

(#2) This raunchy red band trailer certainly tells the audience what’s in store and there are sufficient elements to make the film look like a great deal of fun.

(#3) Meanwhile, how do you sell a film about sex-obsessed puppets without getting kids to think this is a film for them? This trailer does a fine job putting that information forward without going overboard with the lewd content.