Frank & Zed

In this puppet horror comedy gorefest, Frank & Zed are two monsters who live peacefully in a derelict castle, relying on each other for survival. With the ruler of the nearby kingdom close to death, an evil magistrate is determined to seize power and tricks the local villagers to attack the lonely castle and our hapless heroes. Jesse Blanchard’s funny but heartfelt labour of love (and blood & guts) about dependence, friendship and consequences was seven years in the making and shot almost entirely using practical effects.

‘It takes a lot of rehearsal, a lot of work and coordination. You could have five people working together to make a character come alive. Where it gets scary is that if I make a mistake and a puppet gets destroyed, there’s no going back, there’s one of each puppet. With the orgy of blood, I was like, when a puppet gets destroyed, it needs to be completely destroyed, ripped apart. So you shoot the whole thing, just really going, like, I hope I got all the shots. If you miss a shot, you’re dead. You have to be super-precise, because I think there’s like 1,500 shots in the orgy of blood.’

Director Jesse Blanchard, from an interview with Screen Anarchy.