Puppet Master

PUPPET MASTER 1 is one of the better FULL MOON / Charles Band productions. Its strength is in its weirdness. While the human actors, including Paul Le Mat, William Hickey, and Barbara Crampton in a fun cameo, are all solid enough, it's the vicious, oddly endearing puppets themselves that steal the show.

We get: #1- Blade with his knife / hook combo! #2- Leech Woman and her mouth full of bloodsuckers! #3- Tunneler's drill-head! #4- Pinhead with his super strength and mega-fists!

As absurd as this all sounds, it works!

Alex (Le Mat) and a group of fellow psychics have their collective hands full against these tiny terrors. Director David Schmoeller makes the best of the material. Yes, it's fairly silly, but it's also enjoyable and different...

This flick has developed quite a reputation as being a minor "cult classic", but actually it's not very good. Not very good at all. The story is shallow (I hear that it's further developed in the sequels, but that doesn't mean much for the viewers of this particular film), the characters are mostly uninteresting or unlikable, and the special effects, though cleverly conceived at times, show their age (already). There is also not much gore and not much suspense. (*1/2)

I thought this would be very low-grade horror and dumb with poor special- effects, but I was surprised: it was good.....very entertaining. It inspired me to see the sequels, too, and they - most notably the third one - were good, too.

It's a little slow to start with, but once the puppets begin their attack story gets interesting, concluding with a gruesome ending. William Hickey gets decent billing in here but he's only in the film for a short time in the beginning. After that, it's just Paul LeMat and a bunch of unknown actors.

In all, not super but more-than-decent entertainment for an hour-and-a-half.

Being a fan of b-flicks and cultmovies, I was aware of this movie's reputation. So, why not give it a chance? Was I appointed? No, not really ... but was I excited?! Neither! This movie has an original storyline, is shot on a nice location and the special effects are OK (they look sometimes a bit silly, but in movies like this, there's one golden rule: how sillier, how much more fun!) But, in general, this is a rather slow and boring movie. It has some great (and sick) scenes ... but that doesn't cover up for the rest of the movie. This movie constantly repeats itself. I really had the feeling that the director had problems to fill his 90 minutes. So ... is it a waste of time?! No, you'll have fun with it. Just don't expect too much of this 'cultclassic'

PS: Just like Child's Play, this movie is about dolls and puppets ... but that doesn't mean it's suitable for young children. A wise advice to all you babysitters out there!

This is one great horror movie. The special effects are great. The acting is good. If you have never seen this movie you should run straight to the nearest video store and pick it up. Or just go ahead and buy it!!! The dvd is great. It is about 4 psychics investigating rumors that the secret of life has been discovered by master puppeteer Andre Toulon. But the psychics quickly discover Toulons secret of death in the form of 5 killer puppets. You have to see this movie to believe it. I give it 3 1/2 stars out of 4.