Puppet Master (1989)

With 15 installments and counting, it’s kind of surprising to see just how humble the beginnings for this cheerfully minor franchise really are. As a kid, catching glimpses on USA but ready to change the channel the instant it got too scary, I thought there was nothing more frightening than the sight of chalk-faced, trenchcoat-wearing Blade peering through the roof of an elevator, knife glinting. Except maybe the ham-fisted Pinhead lumbering over to punch people in the face. And we haven’t even gotten to the gagging, slimy birth metaphor by way of Leech Woman. Hard to watch. Impossible not to.

Until you see this stuff again with the dead eyes of adulthood and all the seams show. What’s the point of having four of your main characters be powerful psychics when they don’t actually use their gifts to—you know—avoid danger they openly discuss is coming? (No criticism though for White Witch Dana Hadley (Irene Miracle) who deserved at least 14 sequels of her own.) Why does the film poke along, padded out and refusing to explore most of the fascinating questions it raises? And why does the music seem to be set somewhere between the “marimba” and “circus” settings on a Casio keyboard, whether we’re seeing puppets peeping at loud hotel sex or murdering Yeardley Smith-inspired maids?

Better not to ask and to just succumb to the 1989 of it all, from the sadly endearing (or endearingly sad?) everyschlub styling of hero Alex (Paul Le Mat) and his mullet to the luminous Barbara Crampton doing her best Linnea Quigley impression in a cameo. There’s something just so damn comforting about the slow boxiness and made-for-TV clunkiness of the entire production and how, out of its pleasantly dreary limitations, the wildly creative and frightening ideas stand out all the more. After all, movies like this were always far better in the retelling, whether that be over a school cafeteria table or in your own nightmares, when all this clumsy kindling could really catch fire.

Definitely watch again… and see how you feel later that night when you think you hear something scuttling in the shadows… 4 out of 5 sacs of blood.

—Jonathan Riggs