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Puppet Master 2 (1990) - Directed by David Allen
Genres: Supernatural Horror
Full Moon Features is a B-Movie company that makes its money entirely on cheese and its various sequels. You may know certain franchises like Evil Bong, Gingerdead Man, and of course... Puppet Master. Well, Puppet Master is one of the franchise foremost money makers and has so many sequels with weird titles that I can't even tell the order of release. For now, let's just stick with 2.
Puppet Master II takes a very different approach from the first story. Instead of continuing with the established survivors from the original film, the movie centers on a bunch of paranormal investigators who come to this one spooky mansion (the one from the first film) to investigate the murder of one of the women from the first film, and soon find a spooky old man wrapped in bandages who claims the mansion is his. It doesn't take them long to find out (as the intro shows) that the man is in fact the original Puppet Masterm Andre Toulon, and he's gone insane as his puppets begin killing again.
First, lemme say that as long as the Bands are in charge of one of their biggest moneymakers, the only possible route that the franchise could take is a bit of self-parody. Until then, we get "serious" sequels which have the same amount of lacking cheese and lacking inspiration. The story is more thick, I'll admit, but the overall plot is quite predictable. Its climax didn't really add anything, and the deaths scattered through the movie only add little bits and pieces that other movies could give you with better effect. Once again, it's a bit hard to care for the characters, so when they get killed off you don't really feel much.
However, it must be said that even the puppets had some improvements on them. First of all, their killings were a little scarier (a little), and their new addition, the flamethrower guy, looked pretty freaking menacing. He was probably my favorite, especially for the clever idea of using bullet shells for his teeth. But with the originals returning, we just get the same old styles of killings as well with only the improved mystique of the film to help whatever horror vibes the movie is attempting to accomplish.
Puppet Master II is a slight improvement over the predecessor because it takes the story, puppet designs and killings a little more seriously, and it's not quite as slow-paced as the first one, either. I mean, I'm probably in the minority concerning this, but the first one was so boring that I didn't see high hopes for the sequels. However, the fact that there were improvements made the movie much more tolerable, even though the improvements weren't drastically better. Just a little bit...
= 42 / 100.
Genres: Supernatural Horror
Full Moon Features is a B-Movie company that makes its money entirely on cheese and its various sequels. You may know certain franchises like Evil Bong, Gingerdead Man, and of course... Puppet Master. Well, Puppet Master is one of the franchise foremost money makers and has so many sequels with weird titles that I can't even tell the order of release. For now, let's just stick with 2.
Puppet Master II takes a very different approach from the first story. Instead of continuing with the established survivors from the original film, the movie centers on a bunch of paranormal investigators who come to this one spooky mansion (the one from the first film) to investigate the murder of one of the women from the first film, and soon find a spooky old man wrapped in bandages who claims the mansion is his. It doesn't take them long to find out (as the intro shows) that the man is in fact the original Puppet Masterm Andre Toulon, and he's gone insane as his puppets begin killing again.
First, lemme say that as long as the Bands are in charge of one of their biggest moneymakers, the only possible route that the franchise could take is a bit of self-parody. Until then, we get "serious" sequels which have the same amount of lacking cheese and lacking inspiration. The story is more thick, I'll admit, but the overall plot is quite predictable. Its climax didn't really add anything, and the deaths scattered through the movie only add little bits and pieces that other movies could give you with better effect. Once again, it's a bit hard to care for the characters, so when they get killed off you don't really feel much.
However, it must be said that even the puppets had some improvements on them. First of all, their killings were a little scarier (a little), and their new addition, the flamethrower guy, looked pretty freaking menacing. He was probably my favorite, especially for the clever idea of using bullet shells for his teeth. But with the originals returning, we just get the same old styles of killings as well with only the improved mystique of the film to help whatever horror vibes the movie is attempting to accomplish.
Puppet Master II is a slight improvement over the predecessor because it takes the story, puppet designs and killings a little more seriously, and it's not quite as slow-paced as the first one, either. I mean, I'm probably in the minority concerning this, but the first one was so boring that I didn't see high hopes for the sequels. However, the fact that there were improvements made the movie much more tolerable, even though the improvements weren't drastically better. Just a little bit...
= 42 / 100.