A widely-regarded classic, I came upon a collection of Puppet Master tapes (PM 1-5, Curse and Retro) and feel it is a review essential to this site. One of the most popular Full Moon ‘Paramount Days’ films is, in fact, one of the best.
Things start out with Andre Toulon (William Hickey) in his hotel room, diligently working on his latest puppet creation. We quickly learn that Toulon has a special connection, of sorts, with these oddly designed puppets. They obey his command and keep an eye out.
‘They’ (mysterious agent-looking fellows, it never really says who they are.. so we’ll call them assassins) are coming for Toulon and thanks to a ‘ay, yo’ from his puppet underling, he knows it. Toulon quickly packs his puppets away in a hidden location and takes his own life just as the killers bust in the door.
Flash forward to the present and we meet a group of psychics who have interconnected visions that draw them to their former colleague, Neil Gallagher out in California, so they’re on their way.
Upon arriving and meeting Gallagher’s wife, they discover he is recently deceased but wanted the group of psychics to see him before he was laid to rest.
Also, during this time, we see some (awesomely) cheesy ground camera work with some huffing and puffing while apparently running. Nice intro for the puppets, the breathing and footsteps are a nice effect.
Psychics start going down via some cool, albeit minimally gory, kills and it becomes apparent that there’s a lot more going on here than they anticipated.
By this point, we’ve met all of our puppets : Blade, Ms. Leech, Tunneler, Pinhead and Jester. All of the puppets are well constructed and the stop motion done to make it work is excellent.
As to not spoil the rest of the movie, I’ll end the recap there. The action building up to the climax is nicely done, suspenseful, yet thoroughly entertaining at the same time. There is a nice twist ending to sorta tie things up, as well.
After watching this (which I’ve been wanting to do since I was 8), I can see why it is regarded as a classic b-horror flick. It’s bad in all the right ways, but is actually well done and clever in others. The puppet work, as mentioned, is very well executed and looks solid, the camera work is good from this brand of movie and the Richard Band soundtrack is, while predictable cheesy and, as usual, off key – a nice addition
Summary – this is an absolutely essential title for fans of b horror movies, if you don’t already own it. The DVD is somewhat pricey, however the VHS is affordable and tape gives it that ‘old school’ feel.
