I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating: I love when a filmmkaers takes a familiar story and tell it in intriguing ways. While the 70s, 80s and into the 90s saw a burst of creativity between Ray Harryhausen’s stop motion, animation like Wizards and the puppetry of Jim Henson, the use of these practical forms of animation have mostly gone away. Sure, films like The Corpse Bride pop up from time to time but too often when we think of animation anymore we think about CGI and not the made-from-scratch goodness that a fantastic piece of animation or a beautifully designed puppet can give us.

It’s because of this that Frank & Zed quickly became one of my most anticipated movies coming out of the NIGHTSTREAM film festival and it did not disappoint.

In a fabulous bit of narration that brings to mind a fairytale as told by Dracula, The Narrator (Sam Mowry) explains that the land owes a blood debt hundreds of years ago, when a foul castle mysteriously appeared on the mountains above a quaint village, spilling forth The Moroi. In desperation, the king of the land summoned forth the God of Death who gave them the power to defeat the Moroi in the form of five powerful weapons, but ominously decreed that when the king’s line is spent there will be an “Orgy of Blood” that’s tenfold as worse.

Of course the King takes the deal.

Now, the castle dies decrepit and empty, barely perched onto the cliffs above the village, but the royal line has also dwindled. The old king is dying, helped along by some poisoning by his closest advisors Titus (Jason Ropp) and The Priest (Steven Overton). While he lies on his deathbed and tells his only son Donnie (Jonathan McLain) he must have a child to continue the line, he vomits (“oh papa, gross!” Donnie responds) and quickly succumbs to the poison. The townspeople continue to fret because, as one of the workers says, “It’s an orgy of blood...everyone dies” while wondering if there’s a way for them to escape, knowing that when you’re poor you don’t get a magical loophole.

Meanwhile, at the castle, something lives...in the form of Frank (Jason Ropp) and Zed (also Jason Ropp), two monsters who’ve had to depend on each other to survive the past eternity. Frank is obviously fashioned on the Frankenstein monster as he’s haphazardly sewn together through parts of various people. Zed, meanwhile, is a zombie who has seen better days. Every day, Frank goes hunting for squirrels to de-brain and feed to Zed before retiring to his electroshock chair where Zed manages to barely work the controls to pull energy from a nightly thunderstorm to recharge Frank’s heart. Every day they go through the same routine, never bothering the townsfolk.

But of course the evil Titus and The Priest get involved and purposely send some villagers through the woods and into Frank’s hunting ground, setting off a war for the soul of the small town and the poor, innocent monsters who just wanted to be left alone.

Frank & Zed is a traditional story we’ve heard many times, but it’s presented and told in such a charming and heartfelt way, through the use of puppetry. Everything about the production comes from such a warm place of love and reverence to the genre, pulling from the Universal Classic Monsters and Hammer Horror and mixing it with Jim Henson-level love and affection. The press notes said that writer/director Jesse Blanchard spent seven years bringing this creation to life and his heart and intent can be seen in every shot of the film. The scenes burst with energy in the same way that Henson movies like The Dark Crystal did, peppering each scene with little moments and background details that add a sense of life and presence to the world.

The creature design is incredibly imaginative, particularly the two leads. Frank’s face, for example, is a mix of two different eyes, on bulging and one recessed into his skull. A finger has been attached backwards, as if broken, and one of his mismatched legs is smaller than the other so it’s been nailed to a chunk of wood. Zed meanwhile fits in that creepy-cute realm, mixing typical zombie tropes, such as glassy, white eyes with incredible details, such as the chunk that’s missing from his skull that he randomly pulls a chunk of brain from, from time to time.

The story, meanwhile, does tick off Universal Monster/Hammer tropes but it’s all grounded in the unlikely friendship between Frank and Zed, two creations who’ve had to depend on each other for over 200 years. Each time Frank has to be recharged at night by Zed becomes slightly more difficult, as Zed slowly falls apart. At one point, Zed’s hand gets tangled and torn away during the recharge and the next day, Frank takes nails from his body and pieces of cloth from his clothing to stitch him back together. Moments like this with the mostly silent pair of monsters truly brings their friendship and dire situation to life with a melancholic edge. Throughout the bloody story--and trust me, it gets bloody--their unlikely friendship keeps the fantastical grounded and had me emotionally invested.

As the film rounds into the final thirty minutes, I was shocked and surprised, a gleeful smile plastered on my face, as the brawl between the villagers and the monsters turned into the prophesized orgy of blood. Limbs fly, heads are decapitated, a body is flung from a window to dangle from their intestines; it’s a hellishly absurd finale, designed with wit and imagination. Frank & Zed stitches together Peter Jackson’s outrageously gory comedic work with the heart and authenticity of Jim Henson to become its own Frankenstein’d monster. The inventiveness and the audacious gore gags had me howling all the way up to the bittersweet ending.

Frank & Zed is a gorgeously designed piece of art that left me ready to see what Jesse Blanchard does next.