The Puppetman is a new Shudder original… with flaws. The first being that title… what even is a “puppetman”? Puppet Master, please. What? There’s already a half dozen movies called Puppet Master? Wait a second… there’s 14 of them!? Damn, Full Moon Studios… you went hard.

Anyway, The Puppetman <wince> is about a college girl who was rescued from a bad family situation as a child. Now her father is on death row, she’s sleep walking in a creepy way, and her friends start to commit involuntary suicide around her.

Yeah, I wasn’t feeling this movie’s first half. It crawled a little too much, it was too dour, and it felt kind of obvious and predictable. The title of the movie kind of gives it all away.

But there’s a shifts that changes the focus and makes the movie far more interesting and chaotic. Even then though amidst its newfound madness, it still manages to be a little repetitive. The actual finale was one of the stranger creative decisions too… I respect its slow pace but am not sure it worked.

The Puppetman demands patience and I think it rewards it. It felt like one movie before it shifts to something different. I wish I liked it more, but I enjoyed its back half enough to give it a good score.

Score: 77