Director Brandon Christensen makes movies that I like, and he's been doing so for a while now. I wouldn't say that he's been improving with every film he makes, but he has certainly maintained a consistency over the past few years that have marked him out as someone I should be keeping more of an eye on.
The Puppetman is a good, if slightly silly, concept. A man is on death row for murder of his wife many years ago. His daughter, Michal (Alyson Gorske), knows that something very odd happened on that day, and she soon starts to learn about a presence that can jump around and force people to act against their own will. It uses people as puppets, if you will. As people around Michal start to die in a variety of grisly "accidents", she starts trying to figure out how to convince people of what is really happening, and how to put an end to it.
With a screenplay also co-written by the director, alongside Ryan Christensen, and story input from Matt Manjourides, The Puppetman confidently moves between impressive moments of tension and slightly ridiculous plot beats that are handled with just the right level of seriousness to make them palatable. Nothing feels too overly earnest, but it's not being mocked either, and everything gets more exciting as Michal starts to find her situation more unbearable and hopeless.
The runtime is 96 minutes, a sweet spot that allows time for the plot to unfold nicely without feeling stretched too thin, and everything is polished enough to show a budget put to great use, while also having a few rough edges to remind you that this certainly isn't a slick and mainstream release. And when you get to the death scenes, oh boy, that's where you can see that they have pulled out all of the stops. There are a few moments here that are brilliantly gnarly. Yes, I would have liked to use words here that didn't make me seem like a blogging version of Bart Simpson, but "brilliantly gnarly" seems to be the most appropriiate phrase.
Gorske isn't a bad lead, and she certainly stands out more than most of the younger supporting players around her (with the exception of Angel Prater, who does very well in the first third of the film), and there are decent turns from Michael Paré (a cop who quickly finds out what is going on), Caryn Richman (a medium who may be able to help, if she can keep people, including herself, alive long enough), and Zachary Le Vey (the imprisoned killer).
Maybe helped by the fact that I had no expectations going in, I do try to avoid expectations with most movies I watch, but hadn't even heard of this before today, The Puppetman is a film I thoroughly enjoyed, and it's one that I recommend to horror fans after something new and a bit different from the usual selection of evergreen zombie movies, monster flicks, found-footage shenanigans, and attempts to replicate the work of James Wan.
7/10
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