Puppet Master 4

This is strange and unlike the other puppet master movies in the series. But it is funny in many ways, for instance take Cameron's high pitched shrieking of obcenities, and the Head monster at the Beginning is Hilarious looking HA HA HA. I was very pleased the girl who plays Lauren, man is she attractive or WHAT? The puppets are good guys who have to fight off Evil? What happend to the Evil gene and the lust to get brain chunks HUH? Well it's pretty cool that they are good though. The soundtrack by Quiet Riot and Joker is the icing on the cake for me. Watch this movie it's not that long. and its pretty GOOD.

The notorious Bodega Bay Inn is now inhabited by a whiz-kid science major named Rick Myers who is working for an elite team of scientists in hopes of finding out the secret of artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, in Hell, at the EXACT SAME MOMENT, a legion of evil rubbery demons send a horde of minions to the surface to kill anyone who has anything to do with Andre Toulon's elixir of animation. It certainly would be bad luck if Rick just happened to stumble upon a vial of the damning potion, now wouldn't it? Even though the plot of this particular chapter in the Puppet Master series is razor-thin and the acting stays consistently mundane throughout, it has a certain flair that most of the other entries don't. The puppets are much more likeable this time around, and their movements, although not as detailed or complex, are a lot more amusing and believable.

I remember not particularly caring much for the rest of Full Moon's direct-to-video Puppet Master films that followed on after third instalment, but I managed to come across Parts 4 and 5. I had inkling to see if I still felt the same way and after getting through the fourth film it was actually better than I remembered. Nevertheless I didn't really liked how the puppets are turned into the good guys (although you could say that was the case in the third film, but I preferred that one's revenge angle) facing off against a Sutek the ancient Eygptian God and its minions that can control totems, but credit is due to somewhat (as some familiar staples do crop up) not completely repeating itself. Directed by Jeff Burr (a regular to the genre and to sequels… who would also direct the back-to-back made filth film), does quite competently polished if mechanical job, knowing that it's the puppets themselves that are the main attraction, as the animation is well-executed and the personalities of each one of them standing out with Blade taking centre stage. I always find something unsettling about the puppet Six Shooter and his laugh and again it's no exception here. The only two that didn't appear were leech woman and torch.

The whole angle has the puppets finding a new master and protecting him from the demon who wants to destroy the late Andre Toulon's work and the tone has kind of changed, while some dark glimmers I didn't find it all that creepy (with nastiness mainly occurring off-screen) and even the cliff side hotel they occupy doesn't have that dominating presence either. Some instances fell on the funny side, but the change of pace and whole drama moves by quick enough. Also it looked like it had a little more money behind it and Richard Band chimes in with an airy, majestic score. Reasonable performances by Gordon Currie and Chandra West in the leads with Guy Rolfe returning as Andre Toulon.

A severe backwards step for the puppets in this mainly dull and tedious outing. Guy Rolfe, so fantastic as Andre Toulon in part three barely features this time and Richard Band's fantastical them tune appears with the puppets a fair few minutes in to the film. For the start of the movie we are introduced to the caretaker of Bodega Bay Inn (Gordon Currie) and some youth friends of his (many of the cast are Canadian and are all very good in unfortunately rather undemanding roles - Teresa Hill is quite yummy). Totems, minions of the Egyptian God Sutek want the secret of animation life back and the puppets (when they surface) act with a previously unseen cleverness to attempt to destroy the ugly and very computer game looking Totems. The Totems merely complicate the series and distract from the things that previously made the series so unique - they don't share the weird beauty of the puppets and thus don't really fit in. Top scene is Pinhead using a rag to clean blood from Tunnelers drill bit, classic and about the goriest this film goes. The fifth film was filmed concurrently with this one so expect similar sections of mediocre and a Toulon performance that seems to have been filmed in a different era (or even galaxy). Guy Rolfe deserved better and series fans certainly do. Grrrrrrr.

PUPPET MASTER IV

🌕🌕🌕🌘🌑 3.2

I thought this was entertaining enough. Not as good as the third, but fun. And the puppet FX were good once again. Th whole puppet vs. Puppet concept works great on providing action and effects, and the demon-puppets are a good villain. I found there is plenty of clever stop motion here, all done very well. The acting ain't to bad either, but the psychic girl is a tad annoying. There are three issues I had with the film. The first, a small bug, is the buildup, which like in 1 or 2 takes a bit. The second, a much larger issue, is that the plot seems to feel very scrapped together, like a bunch of little pieces of a script. So when it's all patched together it feels a little disjointed. The third, another problem, is the lack of blood. I don't mean gore I mean blood. Other than a severed finger the action is never violent or bloody enough to be horror-y. Even so this film is entertaining and I recommend it to fans of the series ('sept for gore hounds) and the younger horror audience too.