the Puppet Monster Massacre

"the Puppet Monster Massacre" is a 2010 puppet horror-comedy from director Dustin Mills. It follows a group of young puppets who each receive a mysterious letter inviting them to spend a night in a mansion for a chance to win $1.000.000. Throughout the night they find themselves terrorized by a mutant creature created by a Nazi scientist and hellbent on feeding on their corpses!

I would put a spoiler warning on this review, but there really isn't a need since this film really isn't plot-heavy what-so-ever. Each character in this just feels like a stereotype, we have Charlie the bright-eyed positive protagonist, his head-strong spunky crush Gwen, Gramps: Charlie's crazy and horny grandfather whose claim to fame is "punching Hitler in the pecker", Raimi a perverted and horny super-nerd, Iggy and Moana: horny punk stereotypes, and Wolfgang Wagner: (pictured below) the evil nazi who created Squiggums the aforementioned puppet monster.

It seems that every character in this movie is either stupid or a perv, which tends to be a common theme in this sub-genre of schlock b-movie horror similar to the Troma movies I love so dearly. Throughout the film, we follow the characters being gross to one another all in the backdrop of green-screened environments. This culminates in an absolutely bonkers ending involving a WWII style confrontation with Squiggums (pictured below) lead by Gramps, and boy is it hysterical.

Squiggums is stand out aspect of this movie. I love the way his puppet is designed, it pulls a lot of inspiration from the Xenomorph of "Alien" fame. I feel like the crew took the most time building and designing Squiggums. Squiggums went through several designs until they decided on the final, and one of the awesome features on the DVD is it includes some screen tests showcasing two scrapped designs. He feels a lot more complex and intricate, whereas the other characters feel like they were built using a Youtube tutorial. This adds to the overall feel of the movie, I don't think it would be the same with a bigger budget or cleaner puppets and sets. The cheapness of the end product works for the type of movie it is.

For the most part, the humor mostly relies on penis and fart jokes which may work for some but doesn't always work for me. What does work for me are the ridiculous moments, like Raimi being chased by Squiggums set to a royalty-free piano diddy, or Charlie being stuck in a room with thousands of Bunnies. There's also a ton of sound inconsistencies throughout the dialogue.

All in all, I really enjoy this movie. The sound inconsistencies and the humor driven plot just really show how much fun the cast and crew had making it and how driven Mills was to get his movie made. A ton of filmmakers I feel are hindered by perfection complex regarding their film, but I really commend Dustin Mills for working with what he had to make this feature happen.  For a funny, ridiculous, and for being one of the weirdest movies to wander into my DVD collection I give 'the Puppet Monster Massacre" a solid 2/5 on the Patented Monster Meter!