Puppet Master (1989)

Review by Adam C. Thomas



A good horror movie should have three things: A solid story, first. The story is the foundation upon which movies are built, and you wouldn’t build a house on a sand foundation, now would you? The second thing a good horror movie needs is great gore. If the central figure in the movie is being set upon by the egregious antagonist, then you can bet your bottom dollar at some point someone is going to get cut, at the very least. The more realistic this looks, the better chance you have of people being able to pass off shoddy acting, or poor camera work. The third thing a movie needs is sex. If a director is going to appeal to our basic primal instincts with human savagery, you might as well toss a little boning in there now and then.

The key to all of this is maintaining the balance of these three things, and keeping a cohesive plot active and moving, so as not to bore the viewers. Puppet Master does an OK job with this intricate procedure, but it just felt like it was missing SOMETHING. It had a pretty good story, definitely original, and creative: an old puppet maker from the 1930s had found the secret to bringing his dolls to life, and they were tied to his consciousness, thus retaining his qualities, or the qualities of whoever was in control of them at the time. It had decent gore. For being an indie flick from the 80’s, the gore was actually not bad. It even had not one, but two sex scenes. It just felt like something was off the whole time I was watching it. I couldn’t get past the exaggerated characters, and the horrible acting. Paul Le Mat was the worst offender in regards to a terrible performance. Everything he did felt deadpan and monotonous. He rarely showed any emotion until the final scenes, and even then it felt minimal at best. All four of the main characters were supposed mediums, each specializing in a different form of mental power.

Overall, it’s an 80’s slasher movie, and it shows. I am guilty of being kind of a movie snob, and going into this I expected gold, considering the movie’s cult following. However, as is most commonly the case, I was let down. I think if you can go into this movie expecting nothing but schlocky eighties goodness, you could probably enjoy this one a lot more than I did. As I said before, this one just needed a little extra something to surpass the bar I had initially set for it. If you like cheesy horror movies, then definitely check this one out. I give this one a 6 out of 10.