Puppet Master

Puppet Master was, for me, what one might call a "pleasant disappointment". I don't know what else to call it. We turned it on, hoping to laugh at a movie that was so-bad-it's-good. What we got was a movie that wasn't laughably bad, but wasn't particularly all that good, either.

The movie is about a bunch of psychics who stay at a hotel, where they are terrorized by a bunch of living, killer puppets. That's a pretty kooky plot, right? Even kookier, the movie takes itself pretty seriously.

The puppets were actually very cool. You don't see too much of them for the first two acts, unfortunately. I liked the combination of real puppets and stop motion animation. I'm a nut for both of those things. I particularly liked the guy with a tiny head and huge arms and (sometimes) real human hands. Also, the girl one that vomits leeches on you, after making throwing up sounds for five minutes.

There are like 10 of these movies, and I see the potential in killer puppets for both goodness and so-bad-it's-goodness. I hear one thing the fans appreciate is the level of attention the makers pay to the series' continuity, something that very very few horror franchises bother with, especially in later entries. I've got to respect that.

I wish I had enjoyed this movie more, one way or the other. A less serious tone would have helped me genuinely like it. I guess shittier, more inept filmmaking would have make me like it more for the wrong reasons, but I can't blame these guys for not sucking enough. Good for them for making a movie that people really responded to, enough to eventually get nine sequels.