Kylgor In The Grisly Abyss

Bluesky

Thanks to the likes of Frank & Zed, Frankie Freako! and I Am Frankelda, puppets have been carving out a niche in the fantasy horror genre in recent years. Although it makes room for some marvellous flights of fancy, this type of work is extremely laborious, time-consuming and hard to make a living from, which guarantees one thing: that every such project will be a labour of love. Also tapping into the recent sword and sorcery revival, Kylgor In The Grisly Abyss, which screened as part of Fantastic Fest 2026, is a joyously OTT slaughterfest with deep-rooted nerd appeal and enough silliness to entertain a wider audience.

Our hero, the gruff and surly-looking Kylgor the Conqueror (voiced by Timothy Paul McCarthy), begins the story on a quest to avenge recent attacks on his kingdom by attacking the evil King Kath (Justin Major), but on the way home from a successful raid he and his comrades are ambushed by enemy soldiers. In the chaos that follows, a small group of people from each side stumbles into a grisly abyss with no easy way out. Kathian lieutenant Tarna (Jessica Vano) talks them all into a truce. Their only hope of escape lies in going further, and they’ll need to watch each other’s backs. Over the course of what follows, however, it emerges that some of them can’t even trust people who were originally supposed to be on their side.

When you see that term ‘grisly abyss’, you’d better believe it. Most tales of this type have five or six exciting encounters spaced out around character interaction and a lot of wandering. Here, the encounters come thick and fast, with most of the wandering achieved through various episodes of running away. Like a sort of distilled Australia, the place is full of things that want to maim or kill, but here it’s barely possible to take a step away from one kind of monster without running into another. Little stars that drop onto our heroes and bite; fiends that swallow hands when punched; gooey, infectious creatures with a line in mind control, and any number of indescribably, unnameable things crowd in and conspire to whittle down the small troupe, as unsympathetic designers exercise every malicious fantasy through the medium of clay, papier maché and slime. There is a lot of slime.

Kylgor is supposedly a legendary hero and some kind of natural leader, but we don’t see much of the latter. He’s just really good at hitting things and pretty good at not hitting the wrong things when other people are flailing around all over the place. His fixed face only has one expression, but director Mason Newton DeRushie uses it well. With the exception of the token little green guy who befriends Kylgor at a low point, none of the characters is loquacious, but a surprising amount is communicated through face and gesture, from treacherous scheming to romantic tension. Mike Trebilcock’s appropriately cheesy score builds on this and contributes to building up atmosphere.

Even over the stench of all all the aforementioned slime, genre fans will be able to detect the smell of Steven Kostanski, who is just one part of a highly skilled effects team but whose particular sense of humour underscores much of the monster action. The plot may be one long string of familiar devices, from rope bridge peril to big boss fight, but the effects are endlessly inventive and make it a joy to watch. At 74 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, and you’ll find it easier to make room in your schedule to watch it again.

Source