Following up 1994's fifth and so-called FINAL CHAPTER in the PUPPET MASTER series, this abbreviated adventure offers the viewer little more than borrowed story ideas and special effects.
Dr. Magrew (George Peck), the latest owner of Andre Toulon's living puppets, hires a slow-witted young man named Robert (Josh Green) to be his latest assistant. Impressed by Robert's wood-carving prowess, Magrew assigns him to sculpt the pieces for a new puppet, while the doctor's daughter Jane
(Emily Harrison), begins to fall for him. During a confrontation with local bully Joey (Michael Guerin), Robert almost strangles him, and Magrew tells Robert that he is "a creature of violence" inside.
Joey comes calling at Magrew's place with revenge in mind. The Pinhead puppet fights him off, but it is badly damaged as a result. While Robert is busy fixing it, Magrew takes the other puppets out to kill Joey. Magrew tells Jane not to get too attached to Robert, who soon falls ill. After Magrew
sends Jane on an errand, Sheriff Garvey (Robert Donavan) and his deputy arrive to investigate Joey's death, only to fall victim to the puppets. Magrew straps Robert down and transfers his soul into the new puppet, only for the other dolls to rebel and attack him. Jane arrives back just in time to
see the Robert puppet delivering the coup de grace to her father.
If this entry in the PUPPET MASTER series is cursed with anything, it's a predictable script (whose basic plot is purloined from the 1973 snake thriller SSSSSSSS, of all things) that's distinctly lacking in horrific material. For the first 45 of its 78 minutes, more time is devoted to scenes of
Robert carving than to scenes of the puppets in action; when the latter does occur, a good deal of it is composed of stock footage that doesn't match the rest of the film. In the midst of all this, Dr. Magrew's particular alchemic plot remains conveniently (and completely) unexplained.
Director "Victoria Sloan" (a pseudonym of busy genre/erotic filmmaker David DeCoteau) manages some atmospheric images in the midst of the hokum, and the cast is OK, even if they're forced to say things like "The brain's the most overrated organ there is." Still, while watching these unknown actors
go through their paces, one looks back with even more fondness on William Hickey and Paul Le Mat's turns in the original PUPPET MASTER (1989). (Graphic violence, sexual situations, extreme profanity.) leave a comment
