Puppet Master 2 (DVD)

.../> Following the events of Puppet Master which saw creator of the homicidal figurines Andre Toulon take his own life, his corpse is brought back to life thanks to his naughty marionettes.

Meantime, a “team” of supernatural investigators (imagine the guys from Poltergeist: The Legacy only far less motivated or interesting) move in to an imposing hotel on a hillside facing the ocean. They are there to ponder the goings on of the first ...
...worst sex-lines in any reanimated puppet movie ever. My favourite has to be: “The only time I wanna feel someone tossing and turning is when I’m helping them”. Gumph! At least some good acting occurs (despite dodgy accents) in a flashback to Toulon’s past, where a little about the puppet’s history comes to light.

Oh, and the nudity you say? Men and women will both be served as lady-bumps get screen time as well as a fair amount of ... more

Honestly, people think I have problems. At least I don’t try to raise golems. Golems are monsters made of clay given life by supernatural means – the legend originates from a Jewish tradition and is linked with the Christian belief that god created the first man out of clay. The “go” word for a golem is “emeth” which means truth – and they carry this word around with them as a charm around their neck, carrying out their masters fiendish plans no questions asked. BUT, to erase the first “e” from the word spells “meth” which means - “he is dead.” This will stop the monster in its tracks.

Now, truth be told, there are no golems in this flick. There ARE however, living dolls, and not the kind that sicko Cliff Richard likes to keep locked in trunks. I hear he has one buried in every major town in the UK so he can open up the trunk and have his way whenever he feels like it. Someone buy him a “real feel” vagina and be done with it.

Anyway…

***THE PLOT***

Following the events of Puppet Master which saw creator of the homicidal figurines Andre Toulon take his own life, his corpse is brought back to life thanks to his naughty marionettes.

Meantime, a “team” of supernatural investigators (imagine the guys from Poltergeist: The Legacy only far less motivated or interesting) move in to an imposing hotel on a hillside facing the ocean. They are there to ponder the goings on of the first movie, and also the legend that the place was built as a home for restless spirits. Joining them in this quest is famous psychic Camille. When she goes missing, her son comes to the house to try and find her.

Unbeknownst to the investigators, Toulon is living in the hotel, passing himself off under a false name to convince them he is the owner. He is sending out his puppets to collect brain matter from folks so he can brew up some more life-giving potion for himself and for his loyal servants.

BUT WILL HE SUCCEED?
* * * * *

Anyone who has seen any movie EVER should know the answer to that – he is after all the bad guy.

***WHAT A SHOW!***

All cheap horror movies work by the same code of gore, stupidity and cheap titillation. So does PM2 meet all these criteria? Oh yeah!

The gore ranges from the standard (mainly puppets standing over bloodied corpses), the dire (“before” and “after” deaths – that is, reaction shots to the puppets, a shot of the puppet, and then a shot of the dead body) to the über-bizarre (the final death of Toulon is inexplicable). Nothing quite as bad as ketchup-looking blood, but nothing super-nasty, except maybe the drill-in-head death which ranks amongst one of the classier in the piece. If pushed for a rating now this may just creep into the 15 bracket. Or maybe I’m just jaded with these kinds of movies…surely not…

At the other end of the effects spectrum (and let me assure you, this is an EFFECTS movie ‘cause the acting is fairly below par) are the puppets. These pesky guys & gals look like they were dreamed up by McFarlane Toys and have distinct personalities based around their particular homicidal “gift”. Pinhead has a tiny head and man-sized hands, Blade has – um – a blade, plus a hook for a hand, Leech Woman vomits live leeches, Jester is just naughty and has a head that spins into various combinations of emotion, Tunneler has a drill bit for a head and finally Torch has – ba dum ba dah! A flamethrower arm. The gang all move in stop-motion unless close-ups occur, which gives a great old school feel to the movie (it was made in 1985 so it’s pretty much as old school as you can get!). You must worry when the effects act more convincingly and with better range than the principal actors – but then if Philip Schofield can get upstaged by a frickin’ sock puppet…

What else to like? Well, the soundtrack is incredibly inept but in a charming way…it kinda reminded me of the SCUMM music for the old Monkey Island games. Got me all nostalgic it did!

If you’re a fan of corny lines as well as corny music, then you will also be well served by this feature. Providing the most entertainment are sex-hungry couple Lance and Wanda – the latter being the spouter of the two worst sex-lines in any reanimated puppet movie ever. My favourite has to be: “The only time I wanna feel someone tossing and turning is when I’m helping them”. Gumph! At least some good acting occurs (despite dodgy accents) in a flashback to Toulon’s past, where a little about the puppet’s history comes to light.

Oh, and the nudity you say? Men and women will both be served as lady-bumps get screen time as well as a fair amount of time for a man’s bare bum to wibble around, in a fairly dumb scene. In fact, things get rather ridiculous with the movie when you start thinking about them, as I will point out in my disadvantages section, which I like to call…

***CUT ‘EM LOOSE***

It’s hard to switch off one’s brain at the best of times, and cheapo flicks have a way of disengaging the cerebral cortex via the powers of monotony and bad acting. Yet I was sharp as a pin through this one, and so noticed all the little flaws that make one realise just why you hardly see horror flicks grab an Oscar…

After the character building (Lance and Wanda are horny, Caroline is the hero and very determined, Patrick her brother is a bad drunk – this takes HALF AN HOUR TO ESTABLISH THIS) the “horror” is a little too sporadic. The evil puppets may well be impressive in their design, but they are frustratingly contradictory. Some seem to be able to traverse long distances very quickly, yet when it comes to murderising the occupants of the spooky hotel, they are as speedy as a slug searching through an encyclopaedia. They also look rather crap when fighting with anyone – just like Chucky ion the Childs Play movies, they are inanimate when battered by the actors, and so show all the menace of a murderous blancmange. The worst of all these is Torch’s battery with a thrown fire extinguisher – he simply collapses.

Speaking of fire extinguishers…the sound of one going off is clearly audible during a scene in which Torch, um, torches a bed. The victim of the torching fortunately leaps away just in time, and attempts to put out the fire by placing a bed sheet over it. This works for most of the bed, but there is still a little bit on fire. We then cut to the guy pulling on his trousers, hearing the extinguisher going off behind him and even SEEING THE SMOKE from it! Unbelievable.

Don’t even get me started on the intricacies of the puppets either. One of the gang is caught early on killing Caroline’s brother, and is dissected. The investigators find gears and levers inside it. So why, when the puppets move, do they not emit a whirring noise? Why don’t people being attacked very slowly by foot-high puppets just kick then across the room? The writer David Pabian has formed a script with plot holes so large you can drive a frickin’ MIG fighter through them. The first thing the investigators do when in the hotel is place cameras all around and check every room – so how come they don’t find Toulon’s lair where he builds the puppets? And why don’t the cameras pick up footage of the puppets strolling around (well, except one but that’s a key plot device)? So many questions that the at times inventive gore does not make up for…

Then we come to the actors. Seemingly dredged up from low-grade porno movies and/or soap operas. They mug around looking fairly disinterested with their roles as paranormal investigators and show the minimum of emotion when confronted with corpses, killer puppets, or the bizarre Toulon who looks more like HG Wells’ The Invisible Man than a creepy master of puppets (got my Metallica reference in – YEAH!). People in horror flicks aren’t best known for their acting chops but for goodness sake – each character seems like they were given a word on a piece of paper that they had to act like for the whole film – Ignorant, Fickle, Horny, Bullish, Crap and Mysterious. There is no development, no calling of police when people get killed (following the death of Patrick, Caroline’s brother, they just shove him in a freezer!) or even checking facts when Toulon arrives under his assumed name and claims ownership of the place. No sympathy can be had for the team, who may just have well been replaced with large wet sponges - they may well have shown more reaction to events.

It’s not the worst movie ever. It’s not the best movie ever. It’s just a straightforward hack ‘n’ slash kinda movie, but with puppets as the main protagonists. Gimmicky and insanely camp at times (the actor who portrays Toulon has some fantastic moments of villainy, including very over the top speeches about immortality), it’s a good enough diversion for a quiet night. Beats the live action Pinocchio movie anyway.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Things I learned from watching this movie:

o Mountain Dew raises the dead.
o Paranormal researches are incapable of operating locks.
o Hicks cannot pronounce the word “entrails”.
o Facts and the truth - not the same thing.
o Being gagged by a puppet is strangely relaxing.
o Frying pans are a great substitute for shotguns.
o The best way to get over the very recent demise of your brother is to f**k a stranger who looks like Fred from Scooby Doo.
o Puppets have vocal chords.
o Getting strangled sends you cross-eyed.

I thank you for reading – and that’s the emeth.

© P$ 2002
 

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