Puppet Master

Inert first act, but decent start to the ongoing puppet-slasher series

RELEASED TO VIDEO IN 1989 and directed by David Schmoeller, "Puppet Master" (or Puppetmaster) takes place at a striking old hotel on the California coast where four psychics gather to meet a former colleague and his wife, the heir of the grand inn. However, their colleague has committed suicide and puppets animated by Egyptian sorcery are intent on killing them off one-by-one.

This was the first of a franchise that includes a dozen sequels (as of this writing), which is one more than the Friday the 13th franchise. While decidedly Grade B in quality, I liked the grand ol hotel setting, the cast, and the Ten Little Indians-like plot. Unfortunately, the first half hou...

Puppet Master is the first of the Puppet Master series of movies. It's not the best, so if this is the first Puppet Master movie you see I'd continue on with the series as the sequels are actually much better than the original.

In this movie, we are introduced to the Puppet Master himself, Toulon. We don't learn much about Toulon in this movie other than he created some living puppets and killed himself rather than being captured.

The bulk of the movie takes place years later when a group of new-age super friends (a psychic, a witch, a magician, etc.) go to a hotel where their other occult friend has recently died. It turns out he was after the secrets of Toulon and something happened. Puppet carnage ensues.

The Puppet Maste...

A horrible film saved by five puppets and good stop-motion animation.

I saw this film recently, following the advice of a friend, and I didn't have very high expectations: she herself had told me that it was a bad film, and I decided to confirm how bad it was. It brings us a story about living puppets that kill people... something we get tired of seeing in better movies.

The problem with the film is not the puppets. This worked very well in other films, it's a relatively recurrent type of premise in horror and I even liked its technical execution, quite good thanks to good "stop-motion" animators: the main problem is a stupid script, which seems to be making fun of with the public's intelligence: it all starts with the arrival of ...