Puppet Master: Doktor Death

Loving some of these newer Full moon horror movies. The darker trippy stuff like Scream of the Blind Dead and It Knows you're Alone, William Butler's Baby Oopsie movies and the Resonator saga and now this New Puppet Master movie, which is honestly one of the best ones I've seen in years. It's a stand alone slasher movie and you don't have to have seen the others to get into it. This is what fans want not those sex comedies and credit director Dave Parker for delivering a serious and fast paced horror film, with soooooo much blood and an incredible and freaky ending. Watched this on Full Moon Features.

I've been a fan of the puppet master franchise since I was a kid, and they've always been low budget and a little campy, which is half the charm.

Unfortunately this iteration takes this to the extreme and totally ruins what could've been a fun film to watch.

From the outset the camera work is shocking, jutters when panning across scene and hardly ever square on, leaving you struggling to focus. The music is pretty much constant in every scene which is really off putting, especially when it's just dialogue and no action.

The acting is absolutely terrible, I've seen better at the local amateur dramatic society and school performances, it's as if the just don't care.

The special effects are just as bad, nothing looking the slightest bit real and difficult to watch because of the quality.

This is one of the few films I wish I'd never have watched. Don't waste your time with this one, I'd burn all copies and erase it from existence.

Doktor Death comes in the line of Full Moon movies that try to achive Charles Band's theme of making his studio the "Marvel Comics" of the 1990s. Horror features that have a comic book tone with the prospect of future crossovers. The last movies that came out this year have been hit and miss. But with this latest spin off, I can make an exception.

The killer Doktor is let loose in a senior living home as working nurses try to figure out what's going on. This entry can be described best as the original movie but set in a nursing home. It offers a good amount of characters that sound interesting on paper. A painter that creates predicting art, a guy who binges on old VHS tapes of the Subspecies movies, a mute woman that knows what's going on and so forth. The only one that nearly ruins it is a pervy old rich man who aims to pinch the rumps on the workers. Thankfully, that doesn't get focused on and it does lead to a kill that was hilaious.

The gore effects are a mixed bag. Some of the kills are standard while others are a bit creative. There's a suspensful scene that involves a laundry room with the bedsheets hanging over and floating like ghosts. That's enough to tell me there is some effort for a low budget affair. The special effects with the killer doll refect the nature on how the kills are staged. As the movie goes on, they do get better. Especially for one particular moment that I can't give away which I thought was impressive.

As said before, this has been a hit and miss year for Full Moon Features. From giant women to fish creatures with jaw-boobs, Doktor Death really tries to bring back the old feel of what Full Moon did. It has a Creepshow vibe that is unique and doesn't go too dark with its premise. I can't say this is the best of the Puppet Master films, but its entertaining enough. How can I complain when we have a senior home that has issues of Fangoria?

On a side note, the movie ends on a cliffhanger that does suggest something. My prediction is that we will get a set of solo features on some of the puppets. We already have one on Blade, so why not? If this is the direction things will go, I'm open to it.

I recently watched Puppet Master: Doktor Death (2022) on Tubi. The storyline follows a group of medical students working at a mortuary, unaware that it's home to a possessed puppet with its own sinister plans. The students soon find themselves the unwilling subjects of the puppet's deadly experiments.

Directed by Dave Parker (Tales of Halloween), the film stars Jenny Boswell (Call Me), Emily Sue Bengtson (Frost), Erin Eva Butcher (Saint Clare), Ashton Wolf (Mayberry Man), and Bill D. Russell (Evil Lurks).

This entry is a significant improvement over the Blade spinoff. It truly feels like a Puppet Master film from start to finish. The Doktor Death doll is an excellent villain (or hero, depending on your perspective), and the kills exceeded my expectations. The sound effects and soundtrack were solid as well. My only critique is that the scenes where characters wrestle with the puppet look awkward, but the rest of the kill sequences are entertaining. The direction of the ending was exactly what I hoped for, and I'm looking forward to a sequel. My only real gripe is that the film should have been feature-length rather than just an hour-there was potential for more development.

In conclusion, Puppet Master: Doktor Death is a strong addition to the Puppet Master universe and offers hope for a solid relaunch of the series. I'd give it a 7/10 and strongly recommend it to fans of the franchise.

Puppet Master: Doktor Death, in which the titular puppet goes on a murder spree in an old folks' home, looks incredibly cheap at times.

For example, the sign for the Shady Oaks Senior Living retirement home, where most of the film takes place, is poorly photoshopped (the perspective is all wrong) and it is unconvincingly superimposed. The leaves on the sign aren't even oak leaves. And every time that horrible sign appeared, my eyes were drawn to the digitally rendered grass at its base, which doesn't match the real grass. The sign for Abbott's Funeral Services is also poorly executed: the camera tracking is off (I like to dabble in After Effects and I notice these things).

There's no disguising that this is a slapdash movie, churned out on a micro-budget with little attention to detail, so thank heavens for the blood and boobs, which always make a bad film more bearable. The death scenes are reasonably gory, and Emily Sue Bengtson, as care worker Jennifer, bares her baps, which was just enough to keep my attention for the very short runtime. As cheap and tacky as the whole thing is, it's far from the worst the series has to offer.