Horror Movie Review: Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter (1994)

The 5th & totally, definitely final Puppet Master movie continues from the events of the previous film. Shot back to the back with the 4th & opening with a lengthy recap of what took place before.

Rick Myers, our hero from the 4th has been arrested under suspicion of murdering his colleagues at the company he works for (these were the 2 scientists killed at the start of the 4th movie).

The police have the puppet Blade & after studying it discovered he appears to be almost robotic. They link that to Rick & his work with artificial intelligence believing they have enough evidence to charge him with the murders.

Rick is bailed out of jail by the temporary head of the company (Jennings) who is really interested in Rick’s story. Rick’s girlfriend Susie comes to collect him from jail which gives Blade a chance to escape with them. That night Rick has dream about Lauren & the puppets, she remains in a coma following the events of the last film.

Roused by Blade, Rick realises something is going to happen at the Inn so they set off to try & stop it.

Meanwhile our demon lord buddy, Sutekh having failed in the 4th film decides to send one final Totem to finish the job. The difference this time being that this Totem will have his life-force controlling it.

Jennings, intrigued by Rick’s story has also gone to the Inn to see if he can find the puppets. He’s brought 3 hired thugs with him whose names are unimportant as they are clearly just fodder.

All of these angles are dragged out as we see Sutekh spending half the film reanimating his Totem. The lines…oh man, the lines he spouts, its cringe-worthy stuff. Jennings & his crew spend a hefty amount of the movie trying to find even one puppet. When they do you briefly wonder if we could get some sustain violence but like the 4th these puppets are far less threatening.

When given the opportunity they don’t kill one of the thugs instead beat him up in a more comical fashion. It’s not entertaining at all & seems at odds with their behaviour in previous films. These thugs are trying to capture the puppets…why wouldn’t they kill them?

Also Torch has turned up even though he wasn’t in the 4th, I don’t know how or why but at least his flamethrower is used to kill someone near the end. Two guesses who it is…it’s pretty obvious from the moment we see that Jennings is happy to take bribes.

At this stage in the movie if you weren’t convinced you were watching a boring rehash of the 4th you will be soon after. You see the only way to defeat Sutekh involves bringing the Decapitron back to life again. Yes, we get another long-winded revival of the Decapitron that results in a similar ending (with a bit more flash though).

We even get another cameo from Toulon who basically repeats what he said in the last movie to Rick. You’re the puppet master now, look after my puppets. Inspiring stuff…

The franchise continues to get worse & it’s hard to really say anything positive about this boring rehash. That it is called The Final Chapter is laughable considering how many more Puppet Master movies there are.