30 NIGHTS OF NIGHT, Night 3: PUPPETMASTER (1989)

I had the unfortunate experience of journeying into a Wal-Mart around 10pm on a Sunday night (all the other grocery stores were closed) and found this in a $5 discount bin.

I didn't even know that the cheapie Full Moon-produced series had half that many sequels.  And this is not even all of them, as the collection excludes 2004's Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys and last year's Puppet Master X: Axis Rising, in which it looks like the puppets are fighting Nazis.  Or maybe they're on the Nazis' side, I dunno.  This, I thought, is not a bargain.  This is a challenge.

The first Puppetmaster, directed by Full Moon regular David Schmoeller, is a challenge indeed.  For a movie in which a bunch of puppets come alive and kill people, it's unimaginatively directed and distinctly poorly acted.  And in a movie called Puppetmaster, for the acting to be noticeably bad is no small feat.

The plot, so far as there is one: a bunch of psychics, led by Alex (Paul Le Mat, who lists American Graffiti among his credits but here proves about as effective a leading man as Arnold Stang), visit a mansion where Toulon (William Hickey), an old puppeteer (Hickey was only 62 when this film was made), killed himself 50 years earlier.  Soon his puppets come to life and attack them all.

The puppets were created by David Allen, responsible for some wonderful Harryhausen-esque stop-motion animation on films like Q: The Winged Serpent and The Howling, and they're pretty good.  I especially like the ringleader, a white-faced ghost with a wide-brimmed hat and very large knife.  There's also a lady puppet who vomits giant leeches, and a tiny-headed one whose big strong arms prove none too helpful when characters just pick him up and toss him across the room.

The puppets would make for an interesting premise, if the movie around them weren't so stiff and boring.  Schmoeller points and shoots without much care, and lets dialogue scenes drone on and on.  He even botches the final shot, which might have been clever but feels like a joke where the punchline is revealed too soon.

* 1/2 out of ****

COMING SOON: Puppet Master 2, directed by Allen himself and hopefully featuring a lot more of his creations and a lot less filibustering.