Review: Puppet Master (1989)

Director: David Schmoeller

Starring: Paul Le Mat, William Hickey, Irene Miracle, Jimmie F. Skaggs, Robin Frates, Matt Roe, Kathryn O'Reilly and Mews Small

Written: Kenneth J. Hall and David Schmoeller

Dolls, puppets and ventriloquist dummies have been part of horror for what seems ages, and they've lasted up till this day and age. We've got remakes of Childs Play, Annabelle scaring herself across the Conjuring universe and even big time villain Jigsaw couldn't put people into death traps without Billy the Puppet. So I thought that maybe to get the juices flowing for my return to movie reviews, I should look at a horror franchise that is still going today and thankfully it's all about Puppets. Evil Puppets.

Puppet Master is a weird film and unfortunately it's a bad sort of weird. The Puppets are awesomely designed and very memorable, probably why the franchise has gone on till this day. However despite this strength the movie doesn't really do much with them. Instead we are left with the mystery of asshole and very bad persons death Neil Gallagher, and if he found out the secret of bringing the inanimate to life. A group comes to Neil's funeral which are made up of different flavors of psychics. Again this idea is rather strong, having a team made up of psychics who specialize in different fields is cool. Yet it doesn't really seem to do much.

So all that we're left with is the hope for some interesting deaths via puppets and a big final pay off. We get the first but not the other. Blade, Jester, Pinhead, Tunneler and Leech Woman all get their time to shine, with Leech Woman being my MVP as her dispatching method is visually disgusting and gets the best reaction. However when it comes to the big finale there are several things that don't really make sense and it's all a bit of a let down.

Now before I go on to final thoughts I do need to point out the begging scene with William Hickey as Andre Toulon. Toulon is the original Puppet Master and it is his secrets that Neil and the rest of the group are after. This beginning flashback is very well down and Hickey brings some genuine gravitas to the movie. The way he interacts with the puppets really humanizes them in such a short time. Downside of this brilliant scene is that it's far to good for the rest of the movie. It might give you a higher expectations than warranted.

Overall the movie is full of good ideas, but never really uses them in a way that makes the movie good. Instead the strongest idea; the puppets, caused a franchise to spawn and other more entertaining movies to be born from it. However while it's not the best it's still worth it to watch for the puppets and a few interesting scenes.