A commentary on the streaming age and a movie that is sure to go down as one to watch as an annual tradition during Spooky Season, HeBGB TV is like the queer version of Stay Tuned meets Brainscan with a Creepshow aesthetic and a campy vibe a la The Stuff. Still with us? Good! Because the flick from Eric Griffin, Adam Lenhart, and Jake Mcclellan (Who also all co-wrote the film) just gets zanier from here!
On Deomond (Get it?) is here thanks to a new cable box that is set to “Revolutionize the way we view entertainment”. For us viewers, our first glimpse of said entertainment is through a quirky yet ominous lens as a mysterious package shows up and, mistakenly thought to be dinner, is opened by two children who unwittingly unleash our entry point into this mania as the cable box within attaches itself to their TV and a peculiar someone appears out of nowhere. Part Captain Kangaroo, part Bozo, part The Trickster (From the aforementioned Brainscan), and all menace, the stranger in question (One of many characters here played by Knucklehead) is a purple people eater for sure disguised as a sort of Cat In The Hat who seemingly swindles these innocents to watch HeBGB TV for the promise of two pepperoni pizzas (Kids are dumb if you didn’t know).
From there, things get wacky and a series of vignettes begins to unfurl leaning into the ridiculousness of a product seemingly arriving out of nowhere with warnings of “A heightened risk of brain rot” thrown out regularly via the news station/promotion of said product. And what does He BGB TV bring you? Well, for starters you have a recurring segment like “PU News” keeping you in the know interspersed with kooky ads for products like “Frank’s Franks”, “Fang’s Breakfast Bites”, and “Doctor Knucklehead’s DNA Splicer” to name a few. There’s a QVC-type show with Squash the pumpkin and Mabel, a musical interlude with your next favorite earworm called “Don’t Touch That Dial”, and recurring character Monster Girl popping up in several spots as well. And that’s barely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the twisted terrificness that He BGB TV brings to your eyeholes.
Accented by a killer score (And the equally killer themes throughout the various bits and ads) listed from “HeBGB TV” that’s got everything from electrified Go-Go to some pretty equally wild cues and one piece for “Night Snacker” that’s playful in the way the Phantasm score could be, HeBGB TV really is the total package of frightening and fun. And yes, there is a definite conclusion to it all but you’d be remiss if you didn’t see it all the way through and experience the many faces that the real hero of our story, Knucklehead, wears as a modern day Lon Chaney Jr. to truly “revolutionize the way we view entertainment”.
HeBGB TV from Patchtown Films and Scream Team Releasing stopped by this year’s Salem Horror Fest and is currently continuing to do more rounds on the festival circuit. For the very latest on where you can see it next, follow the trail of socials by heading here, here, or here.