O Mestre dos Brinquedos

Bad acting, awful hair, horrible plot, cheesy action, hokey characters.

Still reading? Good. My brother picked this movie up for me on DVD, because he knows of my love of horror movies. My first thoughts as I inserted the disc was that it'd be a cheesy, laughable pile of 80's horror rubbish. So I was in for a pleasant surprise. If you can get past the initial presentation of the movie (it feels every bit as low-budget as it is), you'll find it to be creepy, intriguing, and above all, great fun. The puppets themselves could have been a whole lot worse. The effects are hardly Lord Of The Rings, but through a strange combination of live-action and extremely well-animated stop-motion, the puppets don't make you cringe every time they show up on screen. They're probably better actors than some of the live actors even, it's difficult to tell who's more wooden. But it's hardly a character-driven story. It's an unusual story nontheless, and it definitely interested me enough to watch it right through - and then pick up the first sequel!

If you ever saw the movie Child's Play, with which comparisons are inevitable, you'll know already whether you can suspend your disbelief enough to enjoy a movie about killer puppets. If you can, and don't mind horrific 80's haircuts, I'd strongly suggest giving this one a rental, you could do a lot worse.

I thought this would be very low-grade horror and dumb with poor special- effects, but I was surprised: it was good.....very entertaining. It inspired me to see the sequels, too, and they - most notably the third one - were good, too.

It's a little slow to start with, but once the puppets begin their attack story gets interesting, concluding with a gruesome ending. William Hickey gets decent billing in here but he's only in the film for a short time in the beginning. After that, it's just Paul LeMat and a bunch of unknown actors.

In all, not super but more-than-decent entertainment for an hour-and-a-half.

PUPPET MASTER 1 is one of the better FULL MOON / Charles Band productions. Its strength is in its weirdness. While the human actors, including Paul Le Mat, William Hickey, and Barbara Crampton in a fun cameo, are all solid enough, it's the vicious, oddly endearing puppets themselves that steal the show.

We get: #1- Blade with his knife / hook combo! #2- Leech Woman and her mouth full of bloodsuckers! #3- Tunneler's drill-head! #4- Pinhead with his super strength and mega-fists!

As absurd as this all sounds, it works!

Alex (Le Mat) and a group of fellow psychics have their collective hands full against these tiny terrors. Director David Schmoeller makes the best of the material. Yes, it's fairly silly, but it's also enjoyable and different...

This is one great horror movie. The special effects are great. The acting is good. If you have never seen this movie you should run straight to the nearest video store and pick it up. Or just go ahead and buy it!!! The dvd is great. It is about 4 psychics investigating rumors that the secret of life has been discovered by master puppeteer Andre Toulon. But the psychics quickly discover Toulons secret of death in the form of 5 killer puppets. You have to see this movie to believe it. I give it 3 1/2 stars out of 4.

When I turned on "Puppetmaster" and saw that it takes place in Bodega Bay, best known as the setting of "The Birds" (and also a movie called "The Pack"), I suspected that I was in for something neat. It's not a bad movie. Paul Le Mat (John Milner in "American Graffiti" and Melvin Dummar in "Melvin & Howard") plays a psychic who goes to a hotel to meet one of his colleagues with some other colleagues, only to slowly find out that the hotel is overrun by murderous puppets brought to life by an Egyptian formula.

This movie does have some of the sorts of things that you might expect in such a movie. Without a doubt, the puppets are the real stars, especially Blade (the one with the hook). I guess that if I could suggest a way that they might have improved the movie, then it would be to go a bit more into the back story of the ancient formula that animated the puppets. Otherwise, it's a really cool movie! Also starring William Hickey (the godfather in "Prizzi's Honor" and the patriarch in "Mouse Hunt").