Main cast: Alyson Gorske (Michal), Kio Cyr (Danny), Angel Prater (Charlie), Cameron Wong (Glenn), Anna Telfer (Jo), Caryn Richman (Ruby), Zachary Le Vey (David), and Michael Paré (Detective Al)
Director: Brandon Christensen
Michal, the lead character in The Puppetman, has led a pretty colorful life. Her father, David, murdered her mother Patricia, and the cops later found her chained in cage, apparently having been locked away by her father for months.
David, dubbed the Puppetman, is now waiting to be executed, and Michal is convinced that he is guilty of murdering her mother. He maintains his innocence, however, claiming that he was possessed when he murdered his wife.
Naturally, Michal’s friend Charlie can’t leave things alone. Her investigation into the circumstances behind David’s crime, done behind Michal’s back, led her to compile a dossier of interesting stuff, including Michael sleepwalking and drawing strange symbols on the wall with her bloodied fingers. When Michael finds out, Charlie shortly after commits suicide… or did she?
Some of her friends suspect that Michal is the actual killer, while others would give her the benefit of the doubt. These friends start “committing suicide” one by one, however. Oh dear, is the thing that possessed David last time is displeased with the bunch of meddling kids trying to unmask its crimes?
Well, this movie is pleasantly pretty good. Normally, movies nowadays that have Michael Paré in them tend to be pretty dire and hard to swallow, but this one is actually a rather nice throwback to those good old days when adult-looking “teenagers” are all killed in a no-nonsense way without tediously inserted lazy jump scares or long walks in dark corridors.
The acting and the production values are fine too. The latter don’t scream expensive, but they don’t reek of the eau de “I have $200 but I still delude myself into thinking that I can make a solid masterpiece movie!” phew.
However, the movie is held back considerably by how predictable it is.
For most horror fans that are aware of the tropes and twists of the genre, the particular “twist” here isn’t very surprising when it comes up. It’s not very original either, humph!
Meanwhile, fans of the Final Destination franchise may feel that this is the bought-from-Wish version of that show.
The biggest sin, however, is the tired and unnecessary “surprise ending” that, just like so many endings of this sort, undermine everything that has happened up to the point and make me want to throw up my hands in the air.
The only reason I can think of to include this thing, aside from wanting to give a final cheap “Whoa!” to particularly easy-to-surprise viewers, is that they hope to make a sequel or ten. Given the premise of this movie, however, what’s the point of a sequel? Really, I feel that the movie chops itself off at the knees just to foolishly follow genre formula.
Anyway, this is still a pleasant entertaining watch, although I won’t go as far as to call it extraordinary or even memorable. It’d definitely be adequate to fill up an hour plus of free time. Just don’t expect too much from it!
