Plot
The puppets are being looked after by
their new master, Dr Magrew. He is trying to unlock their secret of life by
experimenting on the young men he hires to carve puppets for his children's
show. He comes across Tank, a down-on-his-luck gas station attendant who is
only too happy to work for Magrew, unaware of the danger he is now in.
Review
After Puppet Master 4 and
Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter did such a great job of killing the
franchise, Curse of the Puppet Master waited four years to spring
itself into the sequel market but with even worse results than before. This one gets off to a bad start by ditching any
continuity with the series, forgetting about Rick from the previous two
films and replacing him with the new character, Dr Magrew. We don't get to
find out much about why the puppets are now under his care and are willing
to kill for him. Not only that but puppets that were killed off in previous
films are also resurrected here without any explanation.
To be fair, you
won't really care because the film is too predictable. There's the Lawnmower
Man-style character of Tank who is just too thick for his own good and
immediately falls in love with Magrew's hot daughter. This girl must have
been really popular at college because she's all over Tank within days of
meeting him. However this love story is rather forced and dull because it's
all a bait for the ridiculous finale where Magrew reveals his true
intentions and his daughter is forced to choose between her love or her
father. The ending is the worst part of the
film bar none. It ends so abruptly and pointlessly that it seems like a reel
is missing. If it isn't then someone really needs shooting for such a
terribly crude editing job. It makes no sense whatsoever and there are too
many plot threads waiting to be wrapped up which aren't even acknowledged. I
know that some of these Puppet Master films have had open endings to
pave the way for direct sequels but this is not the case here as the
follow-ups simply forgot anything that happened here and proceed like it
never existed.
The puppets were once the stars of this series
but with ever-diminishing budgets, the special effects have become too
costly and now they're little more than side attractions. Those expecting to
see plenty of Blade, Tunneler, Jester and co will be grossly disappointed in
the amount of screen time they get. Most of the shots of the puppets seem to
be culled from stock footage from the other films - I'm sure that at one
point, footage from Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge is shown with
1940s Germany in the background! Any stop motion effects have long gone out
of the window and now the puppets are just, well, puppets, with limited
movement and a complete lack of personality. They don't do much at all and
only kill a handful of people in cheap and nasty ways. Gone are the
six-shooting, flame-thrower wielding antics of the past. The feeble body
count here is rather bloodless and shows a lack of creativity not just in
the killing sense but in the series overall. The puppets were once bad guys
but now they've been turned into the good guys and can happily co-exist with
the family, only killing when they are forced to. They were so much more
interesting as devilish little creatures who killed for fun.
Verdict
Not much puppet action, a low body
count and a terrible ending - I am a fan of the Puppet Master series
but Curse of the Puppet Master takes the series to a new low (which
was somehow lowered with the next batch of sequels!)
