eat.sleep.geek.

Have you ever watched a series of sequels without even watching the first movie in the series? I know I have. There was a movie sequel I had watched several times, and then later watched the other films in the series, but never the first movie. Why? Well, I wish I could tell you, but all I can say is that inevitable finally happened. I was scoping IMDB while at work (sometimes we have some down time) and I stumbled across a movie I had completely forgot about, Puppet Master. This movie shouldn’t be to be confused with The Puppet Masters starring Donald Sutherland, which is a completely different movie involving aliens and not the topic of evaluation. If you’re trying to hunt down a copy of the movie at your local video shop, you might have a clerk who really doesn’t have a whole lot of movie knowledge, and might try to show you The Puppet Masters. I must stress the importance of getting the correct movie. Let the clerk know that the movie that you’re looking for neither has “The” in the title, and is the singular “puppet master”, not “puppet masters” and you should do just fine.

Story:

André Toulon, the world’s greatest puppet maker comes across a formula which is able to animate the inanimate. When the Nazis find out about the formula, they send two men who seek out to retrieve it for the glory of Germany. When they arrive, they find  André Toulon dead and his knowledge gone forever. 50 years later in the same hotel in which André Toulon had passed, four psychics are drawn to the death of another psychic, who before his death, was residing in the hotel. Before long the four psychics soon discover there’s something devious going on in this hotel and it all points back to the lost knowledge of André Toulon.

Characters:

The movie involves four psychics; Paul Le Mat portrays Alex Whitaker,the level-headed one of the group, who always uses common sense before acting and sees visions of the future in his dreams. Iren Miracle plays Dana Hadley, a psychic who can read the history of an object just by touching it, and is also romantically linked to Matt Roe’s character Frank Forrester, a psychic who can read minds. And then there is Katheryn O’Reilly who plays Carlissa Stamford, a woman who sees visions not as strong as Alex, but she doesn’t need to be asleep to view these visions. These four have an interesting chemistry, and they seem (as they are written in the story) as distant co-workers. They know of each other, but you can tell that they would rather be living their own lives outside the group than have to work together in this strange turn of events.

Impressions:

Now when watching the movie will obviously be able to tell that there wasn’t a whole lot of production value. When there is a single location for most of the movie it’s normally a clear indication of a low-production value. Don’t get me wrong; there is nothing wrong with that at all. I have watched many movies, such as Clerks, which relied on pretty much one location for filming. This allows the director to concentrate more on story and character development,  keeping the audience glued to the movie. One thing I don’t understand in the movie is why would a puppeteer design puppets that have things like blades, or a drill for a head, when in the wrong hands, the puppets could be lethal? It’s just a thought, but if there is no purpose for a puppet to have a hook and a knife, why even add it? I guess if these puppets didn’t have these things we wouldn’t have a movie. Since I’m talking about the puppets, I must say that puppeteers behind the movements for these puppets have got to be some of the best go-motion animators I have ever seen. Two words: Bloody Amazing. You’re gonna have to see it for yourselves to really experience and appreciate how great the puppeteering is in this movie. One thing I really wished they could have explained a bit more is the reason the puppets  were  released and why exactly are they killing people? Is all the puppet-human violence really that necessary?.

Sure the story isn’t the best and the reasoning behind the puppets is almost laughable, but I can say I did have a good time watching this movie that started the whole ‘living puppet’ theme, which was also an important theme in the memorable movie ‘Chucky’, and of course the sequels to ‘Puppet Master’. Sure it leaves more questions than answers, but all those questions are left for the sequels to help answer.