Puppet Master 1

All horror fans are familiar with Puppet Master whether they've actually seen any of the films or not. Full Moon's first and most popular franchise is also probably their best.
While Puppet Master will never be considered high art or pulse poundingly frightening, it's a fun movie. The first film is obviously the best of the bunch. It tells the tale of a group of psychics who are drawn to a hotel where puppet maker Andre Toulon hid his creations before his suicide many years ago. Seems that one of the psychic clan had gone out on his own to discover Toulon's secret of everlasting life and married the heiress to the hotel in order to find the puppets and discover the secret. Once at the hotel, the psychics-which consist of a feisty fortune teller, a horny couple who use their psychic gifts for more saucy studies, and the straight man who has dreams of the future-start falling victim to the evil puppets. Also roaming around is their old colleague who is now resurrected and in cahoots with the puppets.
The movie is definitely better than it probably should be. It's not scary but does manage some creepy atmospheric moments and has a good soundtrack. The puppets themselves are violent little critters. They don't speak, but utter sighs and groans and show emotion through subtle movements and facial expressions. Stop motion animation is used to show movement in the full body shots where the puppets have to run, walk, jump, etc. Some folks say it looks fake, but considering the budget, it really doesn't look bad at all. It's used briefly and sparingly, and in my opinion, looks quite good. Too many people are spoiled by the damn CGI anymore.
But any way you slice it, Puppet Master is a cheap, fun and entertaining little picture. It's just too bad Full Moon doesn't do films of this caliber anymore.

Puppet Master, the name alone instantly evokes thoughts of other dolls/toys gone wrong flicks of the time such as Child's Play, Dolls, Demonic Toys, etc. However, Puppet Master manages to pull the concept off a bit better than what most would expect for a little 1989 B-movie. In fact of all the killer doll films mentioned, Puppet Master is probably the least reliant on gore and death scenes as far as keeping the movie going, although the 85 minute runtime certainly doesn't hurt.

Here we witness the tale of Andre Toulon, the puppet master who uses ancient Egyptian spells to give life to his most prized creations, a large collection of puppets. In 1939, the nazi's are out to find Toulon who happens to be hiding at the Bodega Bay Inn with his much loved puppets. Before they get to him, he hides the puppets away in the hotel room and takes his own life. Fast forward to the present, a motley assortment of psychics have been called to the Bodega Bay Inn at the request of their friend Gallagher. Upon their arrival, they discover that Gallagher has recently passed, but they continue to investigate the hotel and Gallagher's obsession with Andre Toulon's works. They soon discover just what Gallagher unleashed as the sinister puppets begin exterminating the inhabitants one by one.

The cast here is quite likable and features some great characters, especially Irene Miracle as the fortune teller Dana, who in addition to being quite attractive made for some decent comic relief and an interesting chracter in general. The puppets themselves are also quite interesting here: We have Blade, a knife wielding puppet with a skull-like face, another puppet with a large robust body and a tiny head who has a knack for punching, and a puppet with a large drill atop his head (Imagine the possibilities there!). My favorite puppet was the leech woman, who resembles an attractive dark haired girl but soon starts gagging and vomiting out an endless supply of large, blood-sucking leeches. Puppet Master also features Barbara Crampton of ReAnimator fame in a brief apearance as a carnival goer at the fortune telling booth. The score is composed by Richard Band, who scored ReAnimator as well (The trained ear can pick out a few bits of the ReAnimator score recycled here, but we won't hold it against him).

Overall, Puppet Master is a cool little flick. Certainly not the greatest story ever told, and the puppet effects leave a bit to be desired when you can see hand shadows behind them...But it's definetly worth a watch if you dig horror.

The Puppet Master series has always been familiar to me, but despite being a horror film fanatic, I had never watched a single one of the 9 or so films. I just didn't feel that killer puppet movies could be interesting or entertaining. (Oddly enough, I like the first 3 Child's Plays films! Go figure!) So a friend of mine let me borrow his Puppet Master Boxset, after being shocked that I had never seen any of them. He said they were good, but to be honest, I wasn't expected much. After viewing this first film, I gotta say I was a bit surprised in the fact it was a pretty decent movie. For what kind of movie it was, and how cheaply it was made, you can't ask for much better than this. The basic story to the film was much more realistic than I had thought it would be. The story is about 3 psychics who visit an Inn to find a former colleague of theirs, who they think has somehow summoned them all there for some special purpose. It is later found out that the former colleague has discovered an ancient secret that allows inanimate objects to come to live from studying the works of a puppeteer named Andre Toulon. The acting, though not great, wasn't horrible, and the effects were actually done fairly well (considering the budget this film was made with). Again, don't expect anything amazing here. The movie's editing leaves something to be desired at times, and you can see strings on the puppets at times (and even part of an arm of a puppeteer in one shot!)But the title of the movie itself should let you know what to expect out of a film like this one. With that said, this a decent little independent horror film that it definitely worth a viewing or two. Definitely recommended for horror fanatics!!!

What I like about PUPPET MASTER is what I enjoy about many FULL MOON productions, that being it's weirdness. Here we have killer puppets, but not just some tired old clowns or whatever. These puppets are different! We get Blade w/ his knife and hook combo! Leach Woman and her mouth full of bloodsuckers! Tunneler's drill-head! And Pinhead w/ his super strength! There's also Alex (Paul LeMatt), whose pre-cognitive abilities lead him and his fellow psychics into the hands of the deadly dolls of doom! Oh sure, it's goofy, but it's also fun to watch...

She's perfect...gorgeous face, great figure, porcelain skin, raven hair down her back. She has only one flaw. She has a habit of gagging up thick, mucous-covered leeches while making deep, retching noises. Personally, I'd just think of England and avoid kissing her.



She's Ms. Leech, and the major delight of Puppet Master I is watching her and her other pint-sized companions, Blade, Pinhead, Jester and Tunneler do their stuff. We meet them in the Bodega Bay Inn when a small band of psychics arrive to learn why they seem to be getting strange mind messages from a former colleague, a man named Neil Gallagher. But it turns out Gallagher is dead...we see him in his casket. We also see him sitting in a chair and waltzing wearing white mask. We see him at the head of the table when his friends gather for dinner. Could it be that Gallagher discovered the secret formula an old puppet master named Andre Toulon used to bring life to his puppets? Hmmm. All we know for sure is that 50 years ago, at this very same Bodega Bay Inn, Toulon hid his puppets in a secret compartment, then fired a bullet into his mouth as Nazi agents burst in his room.



And now, in 1989, in the dead of night and in this deserted Inn, Blade, Pinhead, Jester, Tunneler and Ms. Leech seek out the visiting psychics and the Inn's lone maid to slash, smash, strangle, burrow and regurgitate them to death. Only Alex Whitacre and Megan Gallagher, Neil's wife, will survive that night. They find themselves at that same dining table, this time with the bodies of their friends slumped in chairs...and with a live Neil Gallagher maniacally announcing his hideous plot to bring life, not just to puppets, but to corpses.



But what's not to love about murderous little dolls? If a cult film requires a silly but amusing plot, home-spun acting that brings smiles, a stuffed pekinese that shows a lot of talent and death charging at you at ankle level, then Puppet Master is one of the best of the cult films. Among my favorite characters were Irene Miracle as Dana Hadley, a whiskey-swigging voluptuous psychic; Jimmie F. Skaggs as Neil Gallagher, a thin, prancing actor with a face like one of his puppets; Ms. Leech, of course; and Tunneler. When Tunneler goes to work on your face you'll wish you were back in your dentist's chair having a root canal done.