The phrase direct-to-video has rarely worn a badge of shame so proudly as it does draped across Puppet Master II. You’d think killer puppets animated by Nazi-era necromancy would be the kind of gonzo horror gold worth mining. Instead, director Dave Allen hands us a 90-minute exercise in cinematic sawdust, where wooden marionettes are somehow less stiff than the human actors and the scariest thing on-screen is the continuity editing.
This is the second entry in the Puppet Master series, which means Charles Band and his merry band of Full Moon misfits had already doubled down on the idea that audiences wanted more death by doll. Spoiler: we didn’t. But they gave it to us anyway, because horror in 1990 was a lawless wasteland where anything with gore, boobs, and a VHS sleeve could get funded.
The Resurrection Shuffle
We begin with a grave robbery. Toulon, the undead puppet master himself, is dug up by his own toys. Imagine Pinhead the puppet pouring neon-green Capri Sun on a skeleton like it’s a Red Bull and—bam!—the corpse does a jazz-hands resurrection. If you’re already laughing, good. That’s the correct response.
The puppets—Blade, Leech Woman, Pinhead, Tunneler, and Jester—have resurrected their creator, but instead of looking like a grand gothic menace, he lurches around in disguise calling himself “Eriquee Chaneé,” which sounds less like a villain and more like a rejected Les Misérables character. He wears mummy wraps, sunglasses, and a trench coat, which is cinematic shorthand for “nobody has budget for proper makeup.”
The Paranormal Investigators Who Couldn’t Investigate Their Way Out of a Paper Bag
Enter the team of paranormal investigators: Carolyn, her charisma-free brother Patrick, the perpetually horny Lance and Wanda, and Camille, the psychic who should have been smart enough to nope out at the first puppet sighting.
Carolyn is our heroine, which means she’s the only one allowed to act mildly intelligent while everyone else makes decisions that would embarrass Scooby-Doo extras. The group is here to investigate the murder of Megan Gallagher (who survived the first film only to be unceremoniously killed off in a plot footnote—oops). Instead, they stumble into Toulon’s half-baked resurrection project and a lot of half-animated puppet attacks.
Murder by Marionette
The puppets begin their spree with varying levels of success:
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Tunneler drills into Patrick’s skull, which is impressive until you realize Patrick probably would have died from boredom in this film anyway.
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Blade slices throats like he’s cosplaying as a butter knife.
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Leech Woman—God bless her disgusting little heart—spits slimy leeches onto a farmer. The farmer’s wife retaliates by chucking her into a furnace. Goodbye, Leech Woman. You won’t be missed. Not even your fellow puppets looked sad.
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Torch is introduced, and his entire shtick is a flamethrower arm. Subtle. He incinerates the farmer’s wife, which is less horrifying and more like a PSA for why you don’t store gasoline next to your stove.
The problem is none of it feels scary. The puppets waddle around like drunk toddlers with knives. You never think, “Oh no, they’ll kill me!” Instead, you think, “Oh no, I might trip over one of these wind-up Happy Meal toys.”
Toulon: Daddy Issues, the Horror Edition
Toulon spends the bulk of the movie creepily projecting onto Carolyn, convinced she’s the reincarnation of his dead wife Elsa. You know a horror movie is running on fumes when the main villain’s big plan is… marry the reincarnated wife, live happily ever after with mannequins.
He ties Carolyn up, rants about eternal love, and prances around mannequins he plans to inhabit. It’s less mad scientist and more sad theater kid who never got over losing the lead in Phantom of the Opera.
The Plot Twists… or, “We Ran Out of Paper and Just Wrote Whatever”
The script is a slurry of random subplots that never gel:
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Toulon needs brain tissue to keep the puppets alive, so they kill humans and scoop out gray matter like they’re carving melons.
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The investigators piece together the “mystery,” which consists of opening doors and screaming “What’s going on?!” a lot.
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There are bizarre detours like a psychic’s son showing up, only for him to contribute absolutely nothing.
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In the finale, Toulon transfers his soul into a mannequin, only to have the puppets suddenly turn on him like disgruntled employees sick of their boss stealing credit.
Torch sets Toulon on fire, he falls out a window, and dies. Again. Until the next sequel, anyway.
The Grand Finale: Killer Puppets at a Mental Institution for Kids
Just when you think the movie is over, we get the baffling coda: Camille, the psychic turned mannequin, drives the surviving puppets to an asylum for “Mentally Troubled Tots and Teens.” I’m not making this up. The puppets are going to live with children. This isn’t a horror ending—it’s a rejected ABC sitcom pilot. My Tiny Murder Friends, Tuesdays at 8.
Performances: Who Needs Acting When You Have Puppets?
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Elizabeth Maclellan (Carolyn): Does her best, but constantly looks like she’s reconsidering her career choices.
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Steve Welles (Toulon): Spends the movie mumbling like a drunk uncle at Thanksgiving who won’t stop hitting on the hostess.
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The Puppets: Honestly give the most consistent performances. At least Blade never forgets his motivation: stab, smirk, repeat.
Effects: Bargain-Bin Gore
For a franchise built on practical effects, Puppet Master II somehow looks cheaper than the first film. Puppet movements are jerky and repetitive, kills are poorly staged, and even the gore feels sanitized, like they were aiming for a PG-13 rating that never existed.
Torch’s flamethrower is the only halfway interesting effect, but even that looks like a Bic lighter taped to a GI Joe.
Pacing: A Slow March to Stupidity
For a movie with killer puppets, you’d expect things to move briskly. Instead, it drags like a Sunday sermon. Long dialogue scenes pad the runtime, the “investigation” yields nothing we didn’t already know, and the kills are spaced out like they were rationing puppet screen time to save money on stop-motion.
Final Thoughts: Sawdust Sandwich
Puppet Master II isn’t scary, it isn’t thrilling, and it barely qualifies as camp. It’s the cinematic equivalent of playing with broken toys in your grandma’s attic while she yells at you for making noise.
The first Puppet Master had novelty on its side. This one just feels like Full Moon saw dollar signs and assumed we’d watch anything with Blade’s tiny trench coat in it. Spoiler: they were right. We did. But it doesn’t mean we should have.
