DIRECTORS: TOMMY WIKLUND, SONNY LAGUNA | SCREENPLAY: S. CRAIG ZAHLER | STARRING: THOMAS LENNON, KENNEDY SUMMERS. BARBARA CRAMPTON, UDO KIER | RELEASE DATE: JULY 8TH
Forget Avengers. Forget John Wick. The sequel the whole film world has been crying out for has arrived – Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich. This is the eleventh (!) entry in the series and a soft reboot. But what can the franchise really bring anymore? It’s only really remembered for being a slightly gory DTV original and having the first role for The Room’s Greg Sestero in one of its sequels. The ace up this version’s sleeve is that it’s scripted by S. Craig Zahler.
Zahler has made a career from drawing on the B-movie style and elevating them to films that actually have some cinematic value. He’s written and directed the brilliant western Bone Tomahawk, the Vince Vaughn car punching Brawl in Cell Block 99, and the indulgent Dragged Across Concrete, and throws the script fully into its B-movie style. It’s frequently funny, rarely misses a chance to expose a breast, features a glut of gory and over the top deaths, has a plot involving Nazis, and stars genre staples Barbara Crampton and Udo Kier, but it never reaches for more than its low hanging fruit.
After the breakup of his marriage, Edgar (Lennon) moves back in with his parents. Finding a puppet involved in a massacre in his deceased brother’s closet, he attends a convention all about the incident, which also has a puppet auction. Joined by his girlfriend Ashley (Jenny Pellicer) and coworker and friend Markowitz (Franklin), they soon find themselves wrapped up in another puppet massacre.
There’s not very much going on in The Littlest Reich, and with Zahler just on writing duties, it greatly misses his directorial skill. The cast is all game, and joined by the script with a penchant for witty lines, manage to raise a few laughs over the running time. But mostly, all the movie boils down to is a lot of deaths that are only occasionally inventive or entertaining, the standout of which will have new and soon to be parents squirming in their seats. If you’re a fan of the Puppet Master franchise, you might get a bit of a kick from this latest instalment, but most people will only find mild entertainment that soon falls from the memory.
This release has barely a puppet-sized handful of features, with a behind the scenes and making of covering much of the same ground, with the cast and production team telling you how much fun they’ve had and getting more excited about a Puppet Master film than anyone else has in a long time.
