Puppet Master (1989)

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

disgusting, overrated, pointless

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Half a century after puppet master Andre Toulon kills himself in a hotel rather than the prospect of his serum that gives life to inanimate objects falls into the hands of evil Nazis, a group of physics are invited to the aforementioned hotel where they're victimized by animate puppets.This is the film that put Full Moon on the map and for good reason. it had a fair amount of suspense, the puppets were are interesting (my favorite being Tunneler, which I've since procured a replica of, but i digress) and i found it to be a fun little cheapie horror film. One of the main gripes that i've heard about it throughout the years is that it's needlessly slow which i didn't find to be the case that badly, even though it does plod at times.Eye Candy: Kathryn O'Reilly provides the T&A quotient

Full Moon's classic movie, most likely their masterpiece, no pun intended is Puppet Master. The first shot of Blade running throughout the hotel to his creator Tulon was a great hook to the opening credits. The credits have the magnificent Puppet Master theme song that is one of my favorites in the horror genre. The music really sets the atmosphere for this type of fun corny movie but it still produces a creepy feel. What really makes the movie though is the characters being both the humans and the puppets themselves that have their own identity and uniqueness. Irene Miracle who plays Dana Hadley is still a Hollywood crush of mine and she played a fabulous eccentric role in the film. It's hard to nitpick on Puppet Master but if I have to say if there is a letdown it's probably the ending twist which could have had a bit more to it. I recommend Puppet Master to any horror fan around it's a great movie to the horror genre.

Puppetmaster Andre Toulon (William Hickey) was hunted by Nazis and shot himself at the Bodega Bay Inn 50 years ago. Present day Neil Gallagher invites his psychic friends Alex Whitaker, Dana Hadley, Frank Forrester and Carissa Stamford to the Bodega Bay Inn but they find Neil had already killed himself.It's too bad that the great William Hickey is dead in the first 10 minutes. This movie badly needs great actors. The acting in this is stiff and uncompelling. The production value never rises above B-movie level. The best thing about the entire movie is the great campy puppets. They are amazzzing.

Puppet Master (1989): The Good, the Bad and the Blind?Synopsis: Story centering around a puppet maker from the 1930's with the power to breathe life into inanimate objects - in this case, his puppets. A group of colleagues, all with some sort of psychic powers of their own, try to track down secrets that the puppet maker left behind with the mindset of harnessing the ancient power of raising the dead.The Good: Okay, so for starters, this is pretty cool concept for a movie. There is a lot of good back-story with the character of Andre Toulon (which has far too little screen time), the puppet maker with a gift of breathing life in his puppets... which he just happens to make look kinda creepy... and with weapons for hands and heads and stuff? Uh, okay... I guess so. Anyway, the fact that there is a lot of mysticism and psychic power type of stuff going on all over the place is enough to keep your attention. I actually wanted to know what was happening and how it was all going to unfold. For a cheesy puppet-kills-people movie, the story was intriguing enough to keep my attention until the end. There's a little bit of a "who-dunnit" type mystery aspect to this movie and I guess I wasn't expecting that. It was a nice touch to the script, which isn't awful.The Bad: The acting is a bit over-the-top and not in a good way. I wouldn't call it "bad", just not great and it's distracting from the characters, because they are somewhat interesting... even if it is only from the standpoint that you want to know what their secret power is and how it relates to the overall story. Also, the puppets themselves almost become secondary to the story and at times, the writers almost forget about them... which is a bit odd. Are they good? Are they evil? It's almost like the writers couldn't figure it out. Maybe they are neither, I don't know. It was like, "Okay, I guess this is supposed to be a horror movie, so let's throw in a scene where one of the puppets does something nasty." They really seem to want to tell two stories, but don't blend them well enough to tell them both simultaneously, so it focuses more on the humans and what they are after - which is the ability, not the puppets, so the puppets become a side show instead of a centerpiece. The puppets themselves are not scary and the movie isn't overly gory, but they are kind of cool and unique to an extent, I guess.The Blind?: Are all the people in this movie blind? It's funny how no one can actually SEE the puppets running around. There are far too many scenes shot from the view of the puppet (running around on the ground, etc) and no one sees them. It wouldn't be so distracting if they didn't take a "hey, look at the cool camera trick we are doing to make it look like you are the puppet running around" every five minutes. It takes some of the believability out of the movie (and yes, I know that's an oxymoron).