Although very similar to The Body Snatchers, The Puppet Masters is actually based on a Robert A. Heinlein book that came along a few years before Jack Finney's seminal work. It's a fun film, but also one that is very much a product of its time, that being the early to mid-'90s, when The X-Files had made us all aware of how government agencies move in and deal with potential alien threats.
Things start moving pretty quickly, with head guy Andrew Nivens (Donald Sutherland), and agents Sam, who is also his son (played by Eric Thal), Mary (Julie Warner), and Jarvis (Richard Belzer) among the first to investigate some strange events in a small town. It's an alien invasion, with the little parasitic creatures attaching themselves to people and controlling them, making them part of a hive mind. In a race to stop the little buggers from taking over the world, Andrew and co. have to find out exactly how they work, and find out what is the most effective weapon against them. Because once they attach to a host, removing them can be a very tricky, and life-threatening, operation.
Written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, a successful writing duo who went on to craft a number of massive box office hits, The Puppet Masters also had many other people trying to help finalise the script, including director Stuart Orme and David S. Goyer. The script remains weak, certainly in a middle act that moves between familiar “body hopping” moments and attempts to explain the full M. O. of the creatures, but it still has enough fun contained within it to keep things just about entertaining enough in between the more exciting story beats.
Helped by a cast that also includes Keith David, Yaphet Kotto, Will Patton, and some other familiar faces, Orme gives viewers something that absolutely, for better or worse, plays out like a feature-length TV episode of something from this time (as well as The X-Files, you also had Dark Skies and First Wave, the latter two shows coming along after this film). Basically, if you like that aesthetic then you will find enough to like here. The look of the whole thing is quite flat, but there are some decent practical effects, although some aren’t so decent, and plenty of people in suits looking serious and commanding soldiers to contain/destroy a major threat.
Sutherland is very good in his role, and he provides a connective tissue between this and a previous incarnation of Finney’s tale (thanks to his work in the ‘70s version, consciously or subconsciously helping people to forget THIS is actually Heinlein’s story), but he’s left a little bit out on his own in scenes that have him working with Thal and Warner. It isn’t that Thal and Warner are terrible, although they are sorely hampered by the script here, but they don’t have an ounce of Sutherland’s charisma and presence.
One of many films that fares better in your memory than it does on a full rewatch, The Puppet Masters is a lightweight bit of sci-fi horror entertainment. It just isn’t half as good as most of the films that adapt this kind of material.
6/10
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