‘Sausage Party’ – Finally an Animated Feature for Adults

Sausage Party neither looks nor sounds like a deep, existential movie at face value. However, between the adult humor and debauchery, the new R-rated animated comedy manages to explore the important philosophical question of why we’re here and what happens when we die.

Don’t get me wrong. Sausage Party is not the animated movie equivalent of Walden. You most likely won’t end up leaving the movie pondering your existence. Unless you’re high. If you’re high, the movie might be a very deep, philosophical revelation for you.

I am kidding. Mostly. The idea isn’t completely ridiculous, though. The movie is the brainchild of Seth Rogen—and Rogen is known to have an affinity for marijuana occasionally.

Rogen and Evan Goldberg pitched the directors—Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon—on a concept of an animated movie featuring talking food on store shelves. Essentially, pondering what the food sitting on the shelves must think while it waits there…ostensibly hoping to be chosen like puppies at the pet store.

Sausage Party is the first R-rated animated movie from a major studio in almost two decades. For me, it brings back memories of Heavy Metal—a movie a family friend took me and some friends to see when I was probably too young to see it.

I had an opportunity to speak with Tiernan and Vernon about the project. What you might find interesting is that Tiernon and Vernon actually had to cut scenes to bring the rating down to R. Apparently there was an orgy scene, and stuff involving bodily fluids and manscaping Lavash’s pubic region. Eliminating those scenes satisfied the MPAA and brought the movie to a more respectable R-rating.

The directors felt the movie needed a broader theme aside from talking food that has sex with each other, though, which is why Sausage Party also explores the meaning of life. I don’t want to give too much away, but in the movie the food in the store believes that being chosen to be purchased is the equivalent of going to heaven. It is the pinnacle of existence and the true purpose of food. Then Honey Mustard discovers that the food is actually brutally killed and eaten, and sends Frank—a hot dog voiced by Seth Rogen—to spread the message and warn the other foods.