...The Human Experiment

Curse of the Puppet Master: The Human Experiment
1998 | Color | 90 Min | 1.85:1 | R | Stereo | Horror | Full Moon Horror

Source DVD


Director: David DeCoteau

Writer: Neal Marshall Stevens

Stars:
George Peck
Emily Harrison
Josh Green
Patrick Thomas



The human experiment!

The amazing living puppets of Andre Toulon have a new master. In a desperate attempt to duplicate the great Puppet Master’s work, Dr. Magrew has been experimenting with his human assistants, but Hell is about to break loose.

As captives in Dr. Magrew’s “House of Marvels,” the puppets have watched silently as lives have been destroyed with every failed experiment. Now, the deadly puppets’ hunger for revenge is the only way to stop the legacy of evil.


So in an attempt to finish the Puppet Master franchise by the end of the year I better get going. I have always heard negative things about David DeCoteau's Curse of the Puppet Master so let's take a look shall we?




DeCoteau's directing style is on display front and center from the first shot. He has this way about him with camera angles off to the side not so square and jump cuts that give you a nice perspective of the action. I like his use of the camera it to bad the main bulk of his work is low low low budget movies. All tho some day I would like to find his puppy movies for the Holidays Halloween, Christmas, and Easter to see if they are the same way. My only gripe about his work would be he loves his lighting effects and the use of blue gels for lighting. At times it gets annoying I believe I had the same problem with I watched Witchhouse.


The cast works very well together with a more romantic side of the Puppet Master series. Emily Harrison does a fine job of lighting up the screen playing well with Josh Green. It always surprises me when actor or actresses do not do much after making a bad low budget flick, but she did well for herself landing a role on the Bold and the Beautiful and a Christmas movie Defending Santa for the ION network.


The puppets seem to be a huge bulk of the complaints about this movie. It seems that they used footage from older movies and cut them into this one. Good news for me I could only notice once in a blue moon. I really did not bother me at all I felt it blended in just fine and never really takes you out of the mood. The story is much different from the others but like Halloween 3 you just have to take a chance to reinvent the franchise. Sometime's it works but another time's not so much. Here I think it works but most fans of the show wanted more.


It really is a slow burn, but the story moves along nice. Now there are plenty of goofs in this movie you see the boom mic quite a bit and the continuity falls off the rails from time to time but the biggest blunder has to be the simple fact When the pieces for the new puppet are being carved they are wood, when the puppet is finished it is metal. Say what!! Yeah, it confused me as well but oh well.


So the new puppet Tank is born and it will be interesting to see if he ever shows up again. Their idea of the Tank is pretty cool and must have taken up the budget. If you are a die hard PM fan I get how you can feel a little bit jipped, on the whole, thing. But if you're like me looking for a movie to entrain you for an hour you just might like Cures or the Puppet Master.


With a small budget, Curse gives you a pretty good punch! Might be the weakest in the series so far but not the worst. I think most of the fans are wrong on this one!

2 Bloody Brains 

2 comments: