CURSE OF THE PUPPET MASTER (1998)
Directed by Victoria Sloan (a.k.a. David DeCoteau...you're not fooling anyone, dude), Curse wipes the slate clean. Again. At this point, all of Full Moon's features were in-house, low-budget affairs that banked on trifling expectations. Maybe that's why I halfheartedly enjoyed this one. See, I was expecting nothing less than 90 minutes of implacable foreskin torture. I certainly didn't think that I would be able to stay awake for the duration of this residuary, slack-jawed sequel, but in Miss Sloan's defense, the story is relayed in prompt fashion. George Peck is fun to watch as our mad scientist (no, he doesn't portray Andre Toulon), even if we never discover how he fits into the grand scheme of bullshit.
The plot holes...sweet pearl tongue, the plot holes. Torch appears in the opening credits, but of course, he is nowhere to be found in the fucking film. Remember the characters in PM4 and PM5? Remember Sutekh and his cadre of Totem paratroopers? Yeah, they don't exist. The special effects unit has been scaled back, so "Sloan" relies on stock footage for most of the pocket-sized action. I suppose it goes without saying that Curse of the Puppet Master is shorn of stop-motion wizardry. Despite these frailties, I'm cool with this entry. It didn't piss me off like PM2; consonantly, it didn't bore me numb like PM5. Success?
At least DeCoteau opted for a sexy pseudonym. Hypothetically if Victoria Sloan were an actualy living female it sounds like she'd be pretty hot.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this is where I tuned out of the series, which by the way, I've always been pretty bi-polar on. While I've got nothing but respect for the first one and its iconic status as it is a certifiable classic, I'm hardly what you'd call a Puppet Master fanatic. Still whenever a sequel would pop up I'd check it out but I stopped after this one. You know me though, when it comes to Full Moon and franchises I'm a Subspecies kind of guy.
On somewhat of a side note, it doesn’t surprise me one bit the number of sequels has spawned so far. Something tells me the first one was designed with a franchise in mind, the puppets (who are always awesome) just lend themselves to merchandising. Band's business savvy like that.