Shudder Saturday: The Puppetman (2023)

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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Prime Time: Reborn (2018)

Maybe I would have enjoyed Reborn more if it hadn't seemed so smug about having a couple of well-known stars in the cast. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been so irked by a quote that referred to it as "Carrie for a new generation".  Or maybe, just maybe, I enjoyed it just as much as I could have enjoyed it. I certainly didn't hate it, despite a very silly opening act, but it's not a film that makes me want to note down the names of everyone involved.

The rather distasteful starting point for the plot concerns a stillborn baby brought back to life and cared for by a Frankenstein-like morgue attendant. That baby grows up to be Tess (Kayleigh Gilbert), a young woman with the ability to control electricity around her in a way that can harm others. Tess ends up spending time with actress Lena O'Neill (Barbara Crampton), an actress who doesn't realise that her child has come back into her life. It's not Lena's fault though, considering she was told that her child died during her pregnancy. The bodycount starts to rise, and Tess has to decide when she can tell her mother the truth. Meanwhile, a detective (Michael Paré) is trying to piece things together.

Director Julian Richards might do a decent job with the material here, but it's often very obvious that writer Michael Mahin doesn't have too much experience in his field. This is a very (mercifully?) short film, with a runtime of approximately 77 minutes, but it still feels a bit baggy and disappointingly lacking in the conviction to just keep delivering as many thrills and moments of bloodshed as possible.

I like Crampton in pretty much anything, and her presence here is a big bonus, but that's not to diminish the work of Gilbert, who actually manages to be the best part of the film. Equal parts deadly and sympathetic, Gilbert works hard to sell the sillier aspects of the script and keep her character as a villain that you can spend most of the runtime rooting for. Paré, on the other hand, has one of the least interesting roles in the movie, and he feels sadly wasted. Rae Dawn Chong has a small role, and is as wasted as Paré, but I guess having her name to add to the cast list is a bonus (hey, I would be lying if I said it hadn't helped to lure me in).

Reborn was something I didn't mind watching, for the most part. While not quite good, it certainly didn't feel bad. I could overlook a lot of the minor failings because I was enjoying the chance to watch Gilbert and Crampton shine. If the film had gone for some standard and cheesy ending then I might have been recommending this, with reservations, to like-minded horror fans. Unfortunately, the very last scenes are a huge mis-step, ending the whole thing on a note of backslapping cutesiness that jars with everything that came along beforehand. There's also a cameo that actually caused me to roll my eyes so far to the back of my head that I saw the very rear section of my own brain.

Saved by the cast, almost ruined by the ending, Reborn ends up as something supremely average. It's certainly not a film I can imagine anyone watching more than once.

5/10

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Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018)

Although it absolutely perverts the essence of the characters that fans of the series have been invested in from the first movie, to varying degrees, Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich is a wonderful return to form for the series, and a fantastic way to reboot things after the tailspin of the past few years. Purists may balk at the puppets, and Toulon, now being on the side of the people they battled, and tried to stay ahead of, for so many years, but I would advise you to just get on board with the new direction and have fun. Because if this film has any purpose, it's to deliver fun.

Thomas Lennon is Edgar Easton, a man recovering at home with his parents after the end of his marriage. He finds a puppet in a box of belongings that used to belong to his younger brother, now deceased, and realises that it may be worth money. This leads to him heading along to a major auction, with a new lady by his side (Ashley, played by Jenny Pellicer), and his friend/boss Markowitz (Nelson Franklin). Unfortunately, so many of the puppets in the same place mean that things are, almost inevitably, about to get bloody and dangerous.

This is, arguably more than anything else, a reward for viewers who have stuck with the series through the many ups and downs. The script, by S. Craig Zahler, may not be as witty or smart as he possibly wanted it to be (although who knows what he was aiming for when crafting a Puppet Master script, it's not really the place to show off your best work), but that doesn't matter when the puppets go into crazy killer mode, the blood starts flowing, and everyone tries to figure out just what the hell is going on.

Directors Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund, familiar to horror fans who previously enjoyed Wither and Animalistic from them, do enough to ensure that viewers know who everyone is, and where they are in relation to the carnage, even in the most hectic sequences (and there are a couple of wonderfully over the top bloodbath moments). Once the gratuitous gore and nudity appears, it then becomes a constant factor right up until the end credits, with a lot of impressive practical effects bringing the wilder script moments to life.

Lennon looks a bit out of place in the lead role, but he doesn't do a bad job. I'm just so used to enjoying his comedic performances that it felt odd to see him in the midst of this (particularly THIS series). Pellicer is a fun female co-star alongside him, and Franklin gets to play irritating, while staying just tolerable enough to make him someone you root for in the second half. Udo Kier is our Toulon this time around, and he does well with a very different portrayal of the character, Michael Paré is a cop with no time for any of the nonsense he sees around him, and both Charlyne Yi and genre favourite Barbara Crampton do well in supporting roles.

If you've made it through the previous eleven movies then you'll welcome this like a cool drink of spring water after a journey through a scorched wasteland. If you're some casual latecomer then, well done, you can jump in and enjoy this as a standalone film. And everyone who made it through every previous instalment will glare at you with an expression of judgmental resentment and anger.

7/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

Netflix And Chill: The Debt Collector (2018)

It's a shame that the unrelenting march of technology also comes with a few downsides. There are the obvious issues, to do with identity, security, predators, and trolls. But there are some other things that it is easy to forget about. And one of those things is the relative dearth of the kind of movies that would appear "straight to video" and provide perfect, uncomplicated, entertainment for those in the right frame of mind. You have ninety minutes, you have food and/or snacks, and you want a bit of action. Most blockbusters nowadays tend towards the two-hour mark, even if you're getting your fix of fights from someone like Jason Statham or Dwayne Johnson, and there aren't many that aren't part of some ongoing franchise (be it the bigger titles you always see cropping up or the lesser titles that have more sequels than you knew about, such as The Scorpion King movies and The Marine series).

So take a moment to appreciate the ass-kicking skills of Scott Adkins, here teaming up once again with director Jesse V. Johnson to deliver the kind of solid action fare that perfectly scratches that itch you didn't realise you wanted help with.

Adkins is French, a martial artist struggling to make his business a financial success. To make himself some extra money, he gets a job as a debt collector. Paired up with a veteran of the job, Sue (Louis Mandylor), it's not long until French is being tested against a number of muscular guys who are employed to protect their bosses from any harm. Things get even worse when French and Sue are given a job that involves someone who has double-crossed a gangster boss named Barbosa (Tony Todd).

I'm not going to try and make this sound like any kind of masterpiece. It's a film developed to showcase some fight scenes for Adkins, nothing more and nothing less, and the fight scenes are very well shot, always being both entertaining and believably painful. The script, co-written by Johnson and Stu Small (who previously worked with both director and star on their previous outing, the even more enjoyable Accident Man), has enough amusing banter between Adkins and Mandylor, makes it clear that our hero has a slightly better calibrated moral compass, and sets everything up to be unleashed in a super-violent finale. Basically, it does everything you need it to do.

I'm not sure what exactly has held Adkins back slightly over the years, whether it's his delivery of dialogue or his past choices, but this could be his best role yet. It allows him to show a more well-rounded character than some of his other roles, and there are some good running gags with people lightly mocking him as they underestimate his combat skills. Mandylor works reasonably well alongside him, although the film does him a disservice by adding some backstory details that weren't really required, and Todd is very well-suited to his character, one who exudes an air of menace even from his first moments onscreen. Vladimir Kulich is fine, playing the boss of Adkins and Mandylor, and there's an all-too-small role for Michael Paré.

There are better action movies out there, there are better Adkins movies out there, but there isn't the range of these kinds of movies that we used to be able to find, so I recommend this one for those who want to encourage those involved to make more. You know what you're letting yourself in for, and you get exactly that.

6/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.