I remember watching the first Puppet Master film in my teens and thinking it was a pretty good. I remember watching the second and thinking it was pretty poor. I remember watching the third and thinking that, whilst low budget, it was a good film.
I say remember as I'm 31 now and it was quite a while a go. But being the film fanatic that I am, I still remember the puppets and their names.
Even though more Puppet Master films were made, I didn't follow the series after the third one....until I noticed that a new film had been released and that the story would take place early Toulon days - like the third film, which worked - so I thought I'd jump back in and see where the series was up to.
Unfortunately, by the 10th instalment filming is on a micro budget and it shows! I liked the story and thought it was engaging enough. I looked past some of the shoddy acting and poor performances.....but the thing I just couldn't forgive was the lack of budget given towards the puppets! It was poor and disgraceful. At no point did you feel that Blade (my favourite since the first) and co. were alive. There wasn't the slightest effort made at all. If you were to make a home movie about puppets that are alive, the best you'd be able to do to make it look convincing is move the puppet with your hand so the camera can not see - this is exactly what happened in this film. No attempt at animatronics or stop motion capture.
The original Puppet Master was made in 1989 - all these years later, it still outclasses this instalment in every department.
The good thing that did come out of this film is that my interest is rekindled and I've obtained Puppet Master 1-9 which I'm going to watch!
EDIT - Just watch 1-4 as the series goes down hill from 5 onwards :)
