Puppet Master [Puppetmaster] *** (1989, Paul Le Mat, William Hickey, Irene Miracle, Jimmie F Skaggs) – Classic Movie Review 8378

Director David Schmoeller’s 1989 Puppet Master is a bright little Eighties horror flick with a loony plot, based on a story by Charles Band and Kenneth J Hall, with a screenplay by David Schmoeller (billed as Joseph G Collodi).

Alex Whitaker (Paul Le Mat) and his group of psychic friends descend on a hotel where one of their number has been murdered to investigate, only to find themselves being picked off by a variety of murderous living puppets.

It stars Paul Le Mat, Jimmie F Skaggs, Irene Miracle and William Hickey, but, unsurprisingly, the real stars are the puppets, which are delightfully individualistic and cleverly brought to life by special effects man David Allen. Even more surprisingly for a horror film, the human characters are clearly defined and developed. The major fault is the predictability of the ending. The venerable old William Hickey enjoys himself as the evil Puppet Master, André Toulon.

Also in the cast are Robin Frates, Matt Roe, Kathryn O’Reilly, Barbara Crampton, Mews Small and David Boyd.

It is an unpleasant little horror movie, with a lot of strong stuff. It is rated R for strong graphic horror/fantasy violence, a strong sex scene with nudity and strong language.

It runs 90 minutes or only 75 minutes in the cut version. An extended edition is available from Google Video and on DVD.

Puppet Master is produced by Full Moon Entertainment and Empire Pictures, and released by Paramount Pictures (1989) (US) (VHS) and Entertainment (UK) (VHS).

The Blade puppet was operated by five puppeteers.

The ad line references the notorious 1988 rival evil doll movie Child’s Play: ‘A box of little toys has just become a gang of little terrors. This is not child’s play.’

There are six sequels so far, starting with Puppet Master 2 in 1990, and it was rebooted in 2018 as Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8378

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com