My quick rating – 5.1/10. For those who might feel their early childhood experiences watching television were too wholesome, allow The Fuzzies to destroy any such notion. One nightmarish puppet at a time.
The film opens in a way that immediately tells me we’re not in Kansas anymore – an interview with Shirley (Gordy Cassel) and her puppet Sunny, casually explaining they never set out to change the world. It’s quirky and just unsettling enough to make you question whether you should be laughing or preparing for another puppet nightmare. Things only get weirder from there.
After Shirley’s death, Mick (Dustin Vaught) and Rose (Rocío de la Grana) inherit her eerie summer cabin, because nothing good in horror history has ever started with “we inherited a creepy house.” The catch? They have to find Sunny, who is apparently just hanging out there. Like a freeloading felt demon.
Throw in Mary (Baylee Toney), who’s dating Rose (a detail the film finally remembers to acknowledge. Thanks for that), and you’ve got a small but solid trio of characters. They’re memorable enough, even if the performances land more in the “this works” category than “award season incoming.”
The real star here, though, is the feel. Exploring Shirley’s house feels like walking through a strange dream curated by someone who definitely owned cursed antiques. But what really tips you off that something bad is going to happen soon is stumbling upon those tapes, putting one of them into a VCR that also doubles as a workout machine. Sure enough, Shirley appears on tape, greeting them directly. Nothing says “welcome back” like prerecorded paranormal surveillance.
Where The Fuzzies shines is in its creativity. The stop-motion creatures and puppet designs are genuinely fun – grotesque, surreal, and working on “what if your childhood imagination turned against you?” These aren’t your standard real-looking doll horror tricks like Chucky. Instead, everything feels intentionally absurd, like a nightmare that forgot the rules halfway through and just kept going.
Having said all that, there is a point when you have to lower your expectations, especially if you want straight horror. There is a well-crafted bathroom scene at the beginning of the film, which looks as though it could mark the beginning of an even scarier journey, but writer/director Josh Funk eases off the gas not long after. The scares stay pretty mild, and the film leans more into oddball charm than outright terror.
In the end, The Fuzzies is less about making you scream and more about making you go, “what the hell did I just watch?” That ends up being part of its appeal. It’s a fun indie with imagination to spare, even if it pulls its punches when things could’ve gotten much darker.
If you’re the kind of person who enjoys bizarre puppet horror with a side of childhood memory gone wrong, this one might hit the sweet spot. Just don’t expect it to bite very hard, even if its puppets look like they really, really want to.
