bad/awesome flixxx review: Puppet Master (1989)

Ok. Let's begin. I wanted to reiterate to the people that I've been bagging on some movies lately, like House, and Darkman. Usually I don't get so rough on them. But, that's the whole point. I just wanted to make sure everyone knows that I love shitty movies, that's the whole deal here. Some are just so excruciatingly painful to get through. But after they are over, I feel a sense of accomplishment... like I've actually done some kind of work to get through them. Believe me though, I can tell the difference in a bad-good movie, and a good-bad movie. A lot of the time, Ill stray down the path of more good than bad. Lately I've been watching a lot of more bad than good. As with our feature today. One of the most popular series that Full Moon Entertainment has, adding their 9th sequel in the series (bringing the grand total to 10 movies about these guys) this year, last week I revisited the very first PUPPET MASTER.




ok, set the scene, it's like the late 30's, and we're in a creepy old hotel on the Cali coast. You may remember William Hickey as the crochety uncle from Christmas Vacation that smokes the cigar and sets the Griswold's tree on fire. "Je-sus Christ Grace, did the room clear out? Hell no! Tha BLE-SSING!!" He "stars" for a brief moment in the beginning of the flick as Andrew Toulon, a man who has somehow figured out some Egyptian secret, (that they never explain) that brings life to inanimate objects. In this case, Toulon was a Puppeteer in the late 30's. Or a PUPPET MASTER! Get it??!? But obviously he's done something bad, and so in the beginning he's got like a Chinese puppet watching out the window as two Nazi spies come to kill him. Also, this puppet named Blade is running around in a funny POV camera angle trying to get back to Toulon, before the Nazis show up. So he makes it back, and Toulon stuffs all the puppets into a case and shuts them up in the paneling of the hotel, and then just before the Nazi's break down the door, he blows his own fucking head off. BOOM!!! Blood all over what looked as briefly as i saw it like a abstract expressionist print. I was thinking Barnett Newman, but really instead of a block color shape, I'm thinking more of a jazz squiggly kind of deal.... But i digress.



Fast forward to the future (1989) and a bunch of psychics are called together by their friend Neil Gallagher to the hotel through dreams and however else all those powers worked. Two are married and they're like sex weirdos (translated as "really cool") and then theres a southern woman they call the white witch, and some random tool. Okay, so they get there, and it turns out none of them like him, but whatever, he's dead anyway, and then the puppets show up and start killing everybody. I don't wanna ruin everything... I kind of like how Joe Bob Briggs used to do this, "a couple nice sets of boobs, a domination scene where the lady gets drilled in the face (with a drill you perverts), dude has a chick puppet bite his nips, then puke up leeches on his chest, um, what else, resurrection by black magic, and all kinds of shit. check it out, and come on back here when yer done." That's my Joe Bob Briggs impression. Anyway, in the end...

****Semi Spoiler Alert****

i have a question, when Gallagher's wife grabs the white witch's dead stuffed dog, and then it comes to life, are we to gather that she now delves into the black magic? Does she want to be the puppet master??? Who knows... I guess I'll have to watch some of the sequels. more bad than awesome... but watch it anyway. word.