Puppet Master

Puppet Master

Release Date - 1989

Country of Origin - America

Directed by David Schmoeller

Starring - Paul Le Mat, William Hickey, Irene Miracle, Jimmie F. Skaggs, Robin Frates, Matt Roe, Kathryn O'Reilly, and Mews Small

You know I look forward to watching any movie I’m going to review, especially for Hell-O-Ween. Unfortunately there’s always bound to be that one movie you simply don’t want to watch. The one film you do everything in your power to avoid, the kind of film you regret buying and wasting your money and time one. That sort of movie is what will be finishing off Hell-O-Ween 2. Ladies and gentlemen, ghouls and ghosts, I present to you one of the worst horror films I have ever seen: Puppet Master.

If you can’t tell by the title of the movie, we’re going into killer toy territory here. The genre is nothing really new though as it’s been around for years. Of course the genre took off like crazy after the success of the 1988 film Child’s Play, the film which began the saga of our favorite Brad Dourif voiced ginger Chucky. Since then tons of movies and shows have used the idea of a toy coming to life and wreaking havoc. And so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Puppet Master came a year later, a film which was originally slated for a theatrical release but ended up getting pushed to being a direct to video release. Since its initial release the film has gathered quite the cult audience which helped spawn a line of nine sequels, a crossover film with another killer toy series (Demonic Toys), and two comic book mini-series. So it’s safe to say that the series has it’s fans.

Unfortunately I am not one of those fans. But personal feelings aside, just how good is this movie. Is it worthy of the praise it’s gotten? Or is it another bad DTV horror flick. Well as much as I don’t want to, let’s watch the film and find out.

So the movie begins in 1939 at the Bodega Bay Inn where we meet Andre Toulon (played by William Hickey), a man who spends his time creating puppets. But he doesn’t just make puppets; he gives them life as he uses some Egyptian voodoo/magic to give them souls. Why? I don’t know and it’s never really explained why. Something else that’s never explained follows shortly, as two men dressed in black (Wikipedia refers to them as Nazis) go into the hotel. As they make their way to Toulon’s room, a puppet named Blade watches them and races to get to Toulon before they do, he only being seen by one person (how only one person noticed the puppet dressed like a hardboiled detective with a hook and blade for a hand running around I don’t know). He succeeds in getting there before the Nazis and Toulon puts him in a box with some other puppets, he then placing the box inside the wall (once again, it’s never explained why he’s hiding them). The Nazi bastards break into Toulon’s room, but before they reach him he shoots himself. Again there is no explanation to why Toulon killed himself or why these Nazis are after him.

Cut to 50 years later and we meet our four main characters; Alex (played by Paul Le Mat), Dana (played by Irene Miracle), Frank (played by Matt Roe), and Carissa (played by Kathryn O'Reilly). Our leads are psychics and have recently made contact with an old friend name Neil Gallagher (played by Jimmie F. Skaggs). They assume this means that Neil has found Andre Toulon’s hiding place (because they were looking for him because, yeah I think you get the picture), so they head out to Bodega Bay to meet him. But surprise, it turns out Neil killed himself, news they find out upon arriving at the Inn and meeting Neil’s wife Megan (played by Robin Frates) and her housekeeper Theresa (played by Mews Small).

Deciding to stay for the night, the gang splits up and heads to their rooms. Along the way Alex, Dana and Carissa both have visions about Neil. Dana informs Theresa not to go near the fireplace, Carissa sees Neil raping an unknown woman in the elevator, and Alex sees Neil in a mask dancing with Megan. Later that night after Dana scares Megan away from dinner, Alex reveals that everybody in the group aside from Frank are psychics and explains what each one of them can do with their powers. Then to us, the viewer’s delight, Alex actually explains the deal with why they’re hunting for Toulon. It turns out the gang was helping Neil study alchemy, and in the process learned about the Egyptian voodoo which lets people give life to inanimate objects. The group eventually traced down the power to Toulon, and haven’t heard from Neil until now. The group came to the Inn to try and find what Neil may have been looking for, steal it, and settle the score.

But I bet you’re wondering “What’s with this psychic mystery shit? Where’s the evil puppets?” Well they finally show up again and begin to terrorize the psychics. A puppet named Pinhead (no I will not make a Hellraiser joke) knocks out Theresa near the fire place, afterwards somebody moves Neil’s body to be in a chair, an action which makes Megan sick. Meanwhile Frank and Carissa have sex, fairly kinky sex at that in an attempt to establish a connection with Neil (I don’t even…). The two are soon interrupted by two puppets named Tunneler and Leech Woman. Tunneler uses the drill on top of his head to kill Carissa, he doing so by drilling her face (must not make sex joke). Frank gets it a bit worse in my opinion, as Leech Woman vomits poisonous leeches onto him that slowly drain his blood and kill him. Dana is attacked by Pinhead who ends up break her leg. She escapes and ends up fighting him off, however Blade then pops up and slits her throat.

Megan eventually comes to and wakes up Alex, she taking him to Toulon’s room and explains that Neil found out about how to give inanimate objects life. Rightfully scared, the two go downstairs to escape when Alex senses the presence of his comrades. They go into the dining room and discover their corpses, they sitting at a table. Alex and Megan are then greeted by Neil who has suddenly come back from the dead. He goes on to explain that he technically did commit suicide but used Toulon’s secrets to give himself immortality. He brought his friends here to kill them off so that they could never take the secret from him and so that he could experiment on them.

After this little bit of exposition Neil reveals he hates working with the puppets and throws one called Jester at a chair. Pissed off at seeing one of their brothers harmed, the puppets attack Neil and eventually kill him right in front of Alex and Megan. We then cut to Alex saying goodbye and leaving the hotel, thus leaving Megan alone. However as the film ends we see Megan walking up the stairs with a stuffed dog that Dana brought, the dog moving on it’s own free. It seems as if Megan has also learned the secrets of ancient Egyptian puppetry.

Where do I begin with this film? Well usually with the story. And boy does Puppet Master’s story stink. Too many things are unexplained. Why are the Nazis hunting down Toulon and why did he kill himself and hide the puppets? Why do they keep seeing these strange visions of Neil? Whose controlling the puppets if Neil is dead? How the hell did Neil bring himself back to life and give himself immortality with this secret? We know Toulon could give life to inanimate objects, but never once are we even given a hint that he may know other magic. The only other idea I can come up with is that maybe Megan brought him back to life. And if Neil is immortal then how the fuck were puppets able to kill him? This movie is just filled with plotholes. The basic idea itself I think is rather lame as well. The Egyptian magic aspect I can handle, we need a way to bring the puppets to life after all. But all of this psychic alchemy immortality bullcrap is stupid. There’s too much going on and it leads to too many plotholes.

The characters themselves are pretty bland too. They’re either stale or over the top, and over the top in a bad way for me at least. Due to this the actors just do an average job of acting.

As for cinematography, this is where the film is good at least a little bit in my eyes. The scenes are shot fairly nice, nothing fancy but nothing terrible. I will say though that the film is rather dark and kind of grainy, so quality wise it isn’t too bad. The puppetry was done by stop motion, and while it’s obviously noticeable, it isn’t all that bad. I have a soft spot for stop motion filmmaking; it’s an art form that sadly is becoming less used. So as far as the cinematography is concerned, it isn’t all that bad.

The music isn’t that bad either. It’s pretty damn repetitive though, so I can see it slowly getting annoying to some people. The music mostly sounds like old carnival music, which I guess fits the whole puppetry aspect. It’s clear, but once again this is a case where the music is clearer than that of the audio of people talking. Shame. Anywho the audio quality is varied and the music is nice, but repetitive and potentially annoying to some.

So as it’s probably clear from all of this, I don’t think Puppet Master is that great of a movie as all. In fact I consider it to be one of the worst horror films I’ve ever seen. Its plot is too complicated and mangled with plotholes, the characters and acting are below average, the cinematography is simply average aside from being too dark and grainy, the music is once again average, and the audio quality is another meh. Critical thoughts alone, I think the plot is stupid and that all of the characters suck. The only real thing that stands out in the film are the puppets, and even they are pretty generic in how they look. The whole film is just a bad below average heap of film.

It isn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but Puppet Master is up there. I honestly don’t get the appeal of it. Then again the production company, Full Moon, seems to specialize in making B/Z-grade horror films. So maybe it’s popular for being in the same tier as something like Plan 9 from Outer Space. I don’t see it that way personally. If you like the film, then be my guess and watch it. But this is one film I regret giving my time and money to.

D-

And with that, Hell-O-Ween 2 comes to an end. I hope you all enjoyed this year’s reviews and the look into my history with the horror genre. I hope at least one person thinks its better then last year’s reviews, and even more I hope somebody is looking forward to next year’s Hell-O-Ween. So until Devil’s Night 2015, I leave you my children. Happy Halloween, have fun, pig out on candy, watch some horror flicks. Get yourself nice and scared to, it is Halloween after all, everybody is entitled to one good scare.