Review of Puppet Master II (1990) by Jason P — 16 Oct 2010

With a story that's very similar to the first film (instead of psychics we get paranormal investigators) and the killing off of the main bad guy that's almost identical, it's nice to know that this outing in the Puppet Master series does have a few major changes. First is the addition of the new puppet Torch. Can't argue with a flame throwing nazi puppet. Second is the rebirth of Toulon using the animation serum. Basically the puppets bring him back and end up creating a character that looked like he came directly from the film The Invisible Man all bandaged up so you couldn't see his rotting corpse.

Unfortunately, Toulon is also my biggest problem in this film. In the first film (and other films in the series) he's presented as a caring loving old man. In this film he's turned into a love mad crazy psychopath using his puppets to kill. Didn't he mention in the first film that he didn't want the puppets getting into the wrong hands? That someone might use them for evil? Was he actually referring to himself???

It was nice to get a flashback that showed how Toulon came into the knowledge of animating puppets. Always a good thing to have some backstory if you can.

Some of the kills are pretty good and I think there was probably a bit more gore in this film. The sex scenes are less kinky and more erotic than in the first film.

I didn't like how Leech Woman and Tunneler were killed off though. Leech Woman wasn't a big loss but Tunneler was awesome!

The film ends with one creepy scene. I thought seeing Toulon put into a giant mannequin was a little disturbing but seeing the final manequin was just bizarre!

Fans of the series should get a good amount of entertainment from this one. I didn't particularly like the story so much and the film felt like it dragged but the stop motion was awesome so it helped make up for it.