16. INCREMENTAL BREAKDOWN: Stop-motion films are hard to make. Appreciate that mania today.

Directed, written by and starring the voice of Mike Mort, this is the story of tough guy cop Chuck Steel, a man who lost his wife to the Yakuza. He drives Captain Jack Schitt (Mort) crazy with his ability to always blow things up and cause chaos. In fact, his new partner Barney (Paul Whitehouse) is so upset by the first day of riding with Steel that he shoots himself. Now, he gets to choose between a Swedish woman, a monkey or a cheese plant. He goes Swedish and ends up with a woman bigger than he is.

When they go to the hospital to check in on the victim of a violent crime, he meets Professor Van Rental (also Mort), a vampire hunter who informs him that bloodsuckers are basically unhoused people now, driven by a need for blood in the same way that winos need rotgut. Oh yeah — Steel also has to meet with the police psychiatrist Dr. Alex Cular (Jennifer Saunders) who is making all the rest of the policemen ineffective.

Chuck is bitten in a vampire attack, his new partner dies and he ends up working with the Professor in the hopes of stopping the curse before midnight. He also gets Giggles the monkey as his next partner.

As you can tell by this description so far, this stop-motion movie is ridiculous, combining 80s action hero silliness with vampires, good dumb humor and clay gore. It was made with 425 puppets and I’d never even heard of it, which is a shame, because it’s way better than I thought it was going to be, featuring dramatic romantic scenes with clowns, Chuck becoming the chosen one of the homeless and an Illuminati lizard.

It’s worth finding.