PUPPET KILLER
Directed by: Lisa Orvies
Starring: Aleks Paunovic, Lee Majdoub, Lisa Durupt, Richard Harmon
When he was a young boy, Jamie inherited two things from his mother before she tragically died of cancer: a love of gory scary movies and Simon, a puppet, who became his best friend. Many years later, Jamie takes his highschool buddies back to his dad's cabin in the woods for a long weekend. Jamie hasn't been back there since his overbearing stepmother disappeared and Simon has been patiently awaiting his return…
Puppet Killer is an entertaining film made by people who understand horror films and are willing to take an absurd idea and play it mostly with a straight bat.
The film works with a lot of different horror tropes, starting with the tragic prologue which sets up who Jamie is and his relationship with Simon, the puppet. We witness the murder of his overbearing stepmother but have no idea who the killer is.
We the jump ahead ten years when Jamie is in his final year at highschool and immediately see that the film is messing with us. Many horror films have actors playing characters who are younger than their actual age, but this goes further. All other male "teens" are actually well into their forties, and its very obvious. Jamie in particular: actor Aleks Paunovic was nearly 50 when this film was made, yet we are meant to suspend disbelief and accept that he's 18.
Jamie and his friends are off to spend a weekend in the woods, starting at Jamie's dad's cabin. Interestingly, the group of friends consist of 7 people and they are joined at the mid-way point by two other women. This makes for a potentially higher kill count that your usual horror movie. There is also the feeling that these characters know that they are in a horror movie set up and actually take precautions, such as Lee letting everyone know where the car keys are.
Puppet Killer plays with audience expectations for a little while, in that there is a little ambiguity over Jamie's state of mind and whether he is killing his friends and projecting onto Simon. We see that he forgets to bring his prescribed medication and gets really upset when his friends find the puppet and make fun of it. However the film ditches all pretense soon enough and lets us know that Simon is indeed a sentient killer.
There are a whole host of nods to other horror films and the cast contains genre icon Jessica Cameron and two homicidal sisters who are clearly modelled on the Soska twins. Simon also has his own lair in the basement where he keeps all of his weapons and equipment, including a hockey mask. Clearly, this was a film made by people who love the genre
THE VERDICT
The litmus test for this film is whether you can go along with a 50 year old actor playing a high school student. If you can get past that hurdle, then this can be a lot of fun. Like in Scream, the characters think they are smart enough to survive a horror movie but are proved horrifically wrong.