So… Seth Rogen’s new animated feature’s trailer is online, after a screening at SXSW, where it was received with a long round of applause, followed by a Q&A. He told the audience he was trying to make “Sausage Party” for 8 years.
The major reason for the long wait: animated films are expensive, and therefore kind of risky to make, especially when your film is about a sausage (Rogen) who’s in love with a bun (Kristen Wiig). There’s more to it than just romance: Frank the sausage and all the cute groceries he calls friends realise the horrible truth: they are food, and are about to be chopped, boiled and, well, eaten. In a very graphic and horribly loud way.
Is this gonna be a romantic gore animated comedy? Can you even do gore with CGI food? I mean, we are used to seeing sausages as bloody intestines, but that usually happens in low budget b horror movies. This, if it works out, could be a whole new goregame.
The story has some “Chicken Run” in it, only crazier. It’s actually kind of a full length version of an old Muppets sketch, in which a hungry woman is persuaded not to eat a clam because it’s cute and begs her not to. At the end she reaches out for a bun, only to realize buns have feelings too.
If we can assume anything from the trailer (the whole film is yet to be finished, some scenes and the score by Allan Menken are still in progress) – it’s quite disturbing. You get this uncanny feeling since these are just objects, but hey… so are toys. The gap between the cuteness and the familiar family-frienlly aesthetics on one hand – and the brutal murders (did I just called peeling a potato “a murder”? what?) on the other is very affective at making you feel extremely uncomfortable. And it’s also very anime.
Will this weird sensation of wanting to laugh and cringe at the same time hold for a whole movie? That is yet to be determined. “Sausage Party” is scheduled for August 12th from Sony, and also on board are some familiar faces from Rogen’s career: James Franco, Jonah Hill, Micheal Cera, Paul Rudd, Salma Hayek and Edward Norton – who’s portraying a Woody Allen sound alike, as a bagel.
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