By Geno McGahee
There are a lot of horror franchises. There are the big screen, higher budget, notable ones like HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH, SCREAM and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, but then we have the other ones…the franchises that caught on with the video store crowd. Series like NIGHT OF THE DEMONS, KILLJOY and SCARECROW were doing what they needed to do. They were entertaining even if they were bad. I’m not sure if any franchise has been as active as the PUPPETMASTER series. I just picked up the set of 9 films and this is one of the series that I have never seen. I have never been big on puppets, but when I saw the set for five bucks, it was an easy purchase to make. I’ve thrown away five bucks on shit before. If it happened here, so bet it.
We begin with Andre Toulon, played by William Hickey. You may recognize Hickey from every other horror film in the 1980s. He was the old guy in every one. He usually was in a wheelchair and they gave him a cat most of the time. Old people did cats. It’s the only pussy they get at that age. I apologize to any reader that I may have offended with that line.
Toulon has a case full of puppets that have come to life but he has some agents hot on his trail. They are ready to take him down, but he has the last laugh. He hides the puppets and blows his brains out. We fast forward many years to the 80s and there is a group of psychics called to the hotel owned by Neil Gallagher (Jimmie F. Skaggs) and his wife, Meghan (Robin Frates). Neil knew all of these psychics personally and hired them to help him find the key to immortality. He would kill himself before he got there, but the group of seers still has business to conduct.
Alex (Paul Le Mat) has dreams where sees Neil ready to kill his wife while telling him that there is nothing he can do to stop it. We have Dana (Irene Miracle), a woman that can tell the future, more or less. Carissa (Kathryn O’Reilly) can learn things by touch. Whatever she comes into contact with, she will know the history of immediately. Frank (Matt Roe) is a sleazy guy that has some psychic ability as well, I think.
The group holds up at the house and each has an agenda. The only one that seems to want to do good things is Alex. Sure, his hair is terrible, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a nice guy.
The puppets that Toulon hid all those years back are now loose and attacking the guests and the animation is rather good and the puppets are interesting and unique. The coolest is the pale-faced “Blade” puppet and they knew it. It was rather amusing to watch him scream when a woman screamed upon seeing him. Whenever he was on the screen, the movie was very interesting. When he wasn’t on the screen, this played out like a bad Cinemax soft-core porn movie without the sex. It had its share of T&A but the movie is terribly boring at times.
The film does have one of those cool dream within a dream scenes. Alex wakes up from a nightmare to find three severed heads at his crotch, all smiling. He jolts awake for a second time. I would have stayed in that second dream and see where it went. It was one of the few amusing moments of this film that didn’t involve the puppets.
(Spoiler) Neil killed himself to become a puppet, more or less, and the true stars of the film return for one final kill. I think it’s fair to say that DEAD SILENCE borrowed an idea or two from this film, but they borrowed it and implemented it in a much better way. PUPPETMASTER is worth a watch, but it’s very dull and a lot of the dialogue goes nowhere. It’s almost like it wanted to put a new spin on HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL but was lost and the execution was wretched. The salvation for this film is the design and presence of the puppets.
I do recommend PUPPETMASTER, but it just barely gets the nod. If I didn’t like Blade so much, I would have told you to pass.
Rating: 4.5/10
