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1985, the middle of nowhere, USA: Teenaged Charlie is your typical
loser: He never amounted to much in his life, is a bit of a coward, still
lives with his gramps, a half-demented World War II veteran, and he
doesn't even dare to ask the girl of his dreams Gwen out, even though it's
obvious to everyone but him that she feels drawn to him as well. Then he
is invited to spend a night in a haunted house in exchange a million
bucks, which would change everything, and what's best, Gwen is invited
too. Of course, while the night in the haunted house is labelled as a
simple competition, it is not, it's actually the plot of a mad Nazi
scientist from World War II to release his all-devouring monster on
humanity, and at the same time have his revenge on the soldiers who
destroyed his lab and killed his wife during the war, soldiers like
Charlie's gramps. At the mansion, Charlie and Gwen meet three other
teens who were invited to spend the night, a punk, a slut and a nerd - in
other words, typical cannonfodder -, and soon this quintet has to find out
that there is next to nothing right in the mansion, and soon the
cannonfodder teens drop like flies. It's only Charlie who grows with the
experience, and he soon shows signs of courage, and even manages to ask
Gwen out - only moments before she is killed. The monster grows with
everything it eats, and soon it becomes too much to handle for Charlie -
but thank God his gramps is only half as demented as he seemed to be, and
eventually he arrives with an army and a tank. However, the whole arsenal
the army has brought won't even scratch the monster, and the soldiers
serve as perfect monster food ... and soon enough, the monster is big as a
building and heads for the city ... Is it too much of a spoiler to
mention everything ends happily nevertheless ... I don't know
if this came across in my review, but Puppet Monster Massacre is a
comedy, a loving yet respectless spoof of genre cinema, especially from
the 1980's. Actually, the film starts out as your typical pointless teen
slasher, then throws in a bunch of Aliens-quotes before going the
giant monster-route. Oh, and have I mentioned the film is entirely done
with puppets? (Ok, the title Puppet Monster Massacre might have
been a bit of a giveaway.) And as a matter of fact, the puppets
contribute greatly to the humour of the film, not only thanks to their
hilariously basic, unsophisticated looks, but also because they take the
horrific edge of the more violent scenes (after all, there's no way you
can find puppet gore not funny) without going for (too) cheap jokes. Combine
this with the fact that director Dustin Mills really loves, understands
and respect the films he's spoofing, and you get ... pretty hilarious
entertainment.
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