Good old Shudder has been putting up some real classics of schlock lately, and that includes the first three films in the popular direct-to-video Puppet Master series.  These are not good movies, but they are a fun distraction.

The brainchild (children?) of Charles Band, whose entire career seems to have been dedicated to churning out super low-budget horror films with a strong sense of self-awareness, I remember the various Puppet Master flicks being terrifying as a kid.

For context, my parents did not plop five-year old Portly down in front of Puppet Master.  The early 90s were the golden age of direct-to-video flicks ending up on cable as reruns years later.  Somehow, at some point, I caught a few minutes of one of the films, and was thoroughly spooked.

Consider:  as a kid, the prospect of murderous, spooky-looking puppets coming to life is pretty scary.  I’m sure everyone reading this blog—even my older readers, who probably got a cedar log and an orange for Christmas—had at least one weird, creepy toy, and had some vague dread that it was filled with malice intent.  My mom had these creepy dolls that were supposed to be a little boy and a little girl, with heads made from some kind of 1960s-era molded plastic.  Those things still give me the jeebies.

So, do they hold up years later?

Eh, not really.  It’s like watching a Pixar movie as an adult:  you pick up on all the naughty humor that breezes over kids’ heads.  Here the humor is more in the fact that these films even exist.  What comes as across as creepy and terrifying to kids comes across as ludicrous to adults.

But that’s the fun of Puppet Master—it doesn’t take itself seriously.  Nor does it make an abject mockery of itself.  It hits that nice middle ground of entertaining schlock that I love.

Now, to be clear, these are not good movies.  The acting is are more wooden than the puppets and the plots are ridiculous.  Basically, the titular puppet master, Toulon, uses an ancient Egyptian spell (turned into medicinal form, it seems, as represented by green liquid in syringes) to animate inanimate objects.  He puts the souls of his deceased friends into the puppets, who assist with his quest for revenge (established in Puppet Master III).  The target of his revenge?  The Nazis, of course; specifically, the Gestapo agents who killed his wife while trying to steal his secrets for their own nefarious purposes.

The first film is about a bunch of psychics and other adepts gathering in a hotel to mourn the death of their friend, Gallagher.  It turns out Gallagher isn’t quite so dead after all, having uncovered Toulon’s secrets, and is exacting his own revenge on his friends.  The second flick involves a group of paranormal investigators visiting the hotel to unlock its secrets, only to find themselves attacked by puppets.

Obviously, the puppets are the stars here, not the plotlines or actors.  One common theme in the Puppet Master series is that the puppets turn on their master (whoever he is at the time) when he starts mistreating them (Puppet Master and Puppet Master II, but not Puppet Master III).  That’s always a neat little way to finish off the villain in the last ten minutes of the film:  “we’ve committed serial murder for you up this point, but you got a little too bossy, so now you must die.”

The iconic puppets are Blade, who looks like a skeleton with a hook for a hand; Pinhead, who has a tiny head but a massive body and hands; Jester, who seems to be the more sympathetic and sensitive of the puppets; and Tunneler, who looks like a Nazi with a drill on his head.  Leech Woman is also a standout—she vomits up leeches onto her victims.  Much of the fun of these movies comes from seeing how little puppets use their abilities to attack the humans.  It’s also hilarious when the humans kick the puppets and they go flying, which is what would really happen.  Essentially, the puppets use their tiny size and stealthy abilities to get the drop on their unsuspecting victims; otherwise, they’d probably not be that hard to defeat.

So, all in all, I’ve enjoyed watching this flicks while kicking up my ankle the past couple of weeks.  They’re not great, but they’re not awful.  They’re just entertainment… with puppets.