There wasn’t a whole lot of nuance to the marketing of Sausage Party last August. It came down to selling this as another entry in the Seth Rogen franchise, a foul-mouthed stoner comedy that was exactly what the audience was likely expecting from a movie from him and his group of friends/regular collaborators.
Frank (Rogen) is a sausage in a grocery store who, along with the rest of the groceries, is striving to be chosen by the gods who come along and select them seemingly at random. When he and others begin to find out the truth – that they’re just food for humans that’s designed to be eaten – things get weird and they stage a revolution in the store where they all live.
As insane as the campaign might have been, the movie is even mores. There were countless times throughout the movie I found myself watching aghast at what they had the temerity to include, either in terms of the story itself or just some of the things that are said. It’s just amazing the kind of things that were thought up by Rogen an d his writing partners. the movie doesn’t just push boundaries of what’s acceptable, it smashes gleefully through them in a way that even his previous movies like Superbad, This is the End and others didn’t dream of.
That’s largely because of the animated format, which gives them a lot of freedom to go crazy and really bring an outrageous vision to life. Even so, what they pull off is remarkable.
The campaign made it clear, at least for the most part, that this wasn’t a movie for kids so please don’t make the mistake of thinking this is alright for anyone under the age of, say, 25. While the marketing push certainly sold this as a raunchy comedy featuring lots of blatantly inappropriate material it still didn’t go far enough. Proper to be shocked.
