Review of Puppet Master

It's mindless fun written by Charles Robert Band, the Founder of Full Moon Features, an company known for its direct-to-video B-List horror & sci-fi movies. Full Moon's first franchise was Puppet Master inspired from an earlier Empire film, Dolls, and United Artists' success with Child's Play the year prior. Directed by David Schmoeller, the first movie start off in 1939 at a hotel at Bodega Bay, CA where the puppet master himself, Andre Toulon (William Hickey) who commit suicide to escape being captured by Nazi spies for his knowledge of reanimation dead people and putting their souls into his puppets. Bodega Bay will be used for the settings for a lot of the Puppet Master movies. The actor that play Andre will most likely be remember to most people as Uncle Lewis from 1989's National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Anyways cut to 1989, where a bunch of psychics are invited by a former colleague, Neil Gallagher. (Jimmie Skaggs) who they believe has been sending them visions of the future. Only to find that Neil Gallagher shot himself and they have come upon his funeral. If they were really psychics, how on earth did they not see that Neil killed himself? They must have not been the best of their trade. The first 40 minutes dragged on without any puppets on screen. Finally all of the psychics are attacked or killed by the puppets that remain at the hotel. Only two of them will find the connection between Andre Toulon's puppets and what happen to Neil Gallagher. Without giving away too much of the mess of a plot, the film is a bit confusing and made absolutely no sense. I watch it, a number of times, and it still doesn't. It didn't explain enough in the film, to the point, I have to guess just to fill in the blanks on the plot holes. Metaphysically speaking Neil killed himself. Okay that really tells us a lot about why there's puppets running around the hotel killing people. What did the new puppet master had against his own friends and quickly turn against his puppets? How was he able to bring himself back from the dead, when he was dead? Wouldn't it make sense if his wife use the formula to bring him back? What ever happen to his wife in the end of the film? Anyways it's never answer, and the whole heavy use of psychic power was never explain in the other films. The other thing, good about the plot was that they at less, gave the victim characters a little bit depth. Plus, the puppets seem to have more free will than the film lets on and can quickly turn sides unlike other movie monsters. They can play both the villains and the heroes. The movie got a cult following so the puppets were turn the good guys in most of the subsequent films, fighting various enemies including Nazis and inter-dimensional alien puppets. One of the treats of the movies is when new puppets are introduced, although it's always kind of sketchy as to how they come into existence considering Toulon is dead in most of them. The best thing about this movie are the puppets. Each of them having an interesting way of killing people. Blade looks like a small version of the Fisherman from 1997's I Know What You Did Last Summer with a hook. Pinhead is a Conehead lookalike muscle man mixed with Addams Family Uncle Fester who punch and strangles people. Tunneler has a drill on his head, that drills into people. Last is Ms. Leech who is a Leech-puking doll is originally terrifying. Also there is Jester who pretty much just there to be there. He's pretty useless. Overall: Puppet Master was enjoyable, but I never bought the struggle between man and puppets. Too much rolling around. Chucky from 1988's Child's Play was certainly the superior murder toy. The puppets themselves are magnificent though, but I just wouldn't see how people in this film can't overpower them. Their stop motion movement was always fantastic and creepy. Lending the film a unique eerie presence that couldn't be accomplished with CGI and this is coming from someone who thinks people are too hard on CGI. Would've been nice to see some elaboration on the sequels considering there are so many of them, but this was nice none the less. I was left scratching my head for about 90% of the movie and the other 10% of the time, I was freaked out by the puppets I do like the music. It fits the mood indeed. The movie is full of 1980's and 1990's stupid horror clichés. Following the age-old formula of people wandering off alone and getting killed one by one, stupid scenes of nudity, and pointless scenes that make no sense. It's watchable, but give up your hopes for a serious horror movie here. It's not that. So check it out if you want to.