e open on a funeral held in the dead of night. The deceased's brother, asked to say a few words, describes his late sibling as a thumb disowned by their parents at birth who failed at everything he ever tried and who drove away every friend he ever had. The only thing that could possibly be any worse, he concludes, would be if his brother were now dug up to be used in some experiment to reanimate dead tissue. This not only disturbs the other mourners, but disconcerts Dr. Frankenthumb and his assistant, Humpy, who are lurking nearby with the intent of doing that very same thing.
In the nearby village, the peasants riot for no particular reason. They have nobody to lynch, but surely the mayor can provide somebody. The mayor tells them to disperse. Certainly somebody worth lynching will come by before long.
Meanwhile, directed by Frankenthumb to find a brain worthy of reanimation, the simple-minded hunchback Humpy breaks into the Bad Brain Institute and makes his selection from a shelf of brains labeled "Violent," "More Violent" and "Even More Violent than the Brain in the Last Jar." Needless to say, the resulting creation has serious attitude problems. ...
A DVD series that's hard to oppose
Frankenthumb is the fifth in a series of "Thumb" films written by Steve Oedekerk (the others, so far, being Thumb Wars, The Blair Thumb, Thumbtanic and Bat Thumb; a Godfather parody still to come is excerpted in the coming attractions). All five are filmed in a procession Oedekerk calls "Thumbation," which is a fancy way of saying that the features of the real-life actors, sans noses, are superimposed on the costumed and bewigged thumbs that perform as the on-screen cast. All five benefit from a glorious sense of the silly and a production design that, in each case, closely duplicates the look and feel of the film being parodied. The effect is far from perfect, in that there are certain stunts that even the most talented thumb cannot achieve without strain, but the cheesiness of those moments is part of the charm.
At their best, these short films are lunatic laugh-out-loud funny. They convulse rooms. Repeat watchers come to expect and root for recurring characters, like the grinning, one-eyed thumb who always appears, at some point, to shout "Woo-hoo!" Alas, Frankenthumb is not the most successful entry in the series. It has some hilarious moments, from the master of ceremonies, who warns the viewer of the horrors to come, to the nonsensical cameo that dominates the climax ... but the pace lags at times, and there are a couple of totally unfunny bits (like the farmer with the outrageously bad Italian accent) that are allowed to go on for far too long. It's still worth watching, but any of its predecessors would provide a better first taste.
The DVD provides not only trailers but also outtakes (thumbs blowing their lines), extensive cast interviews (various thumbs demonstrating that they're even stranger people out of character) and a commentary track (Oedekerk and other production personnel ranting about discord on the set).
