Puppet Master IV (Puppet Master 4) poster & wallpaper

Gordon Currie, Chandra West, Jason Adams

It's a struggle for control when the puppets battle their most fearsome enemy yet, the totems. These sinister creatures derive their power from the same eternal force that powers the puppets.

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53% liked it

840 ratings

R, 1 hr. 20 min.

Directed by: Jeff Burr

Release Date: January 1, 1993

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Stats: 109 reviews

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pm4 PUPPET MASTER 4 PUPPET MASTER 4 SUTEKH PUPPET MASTER 4 PUPPET MASTER 4 PM4 BLADE VS TOTEM PUPPET MASTER 4 PUPPET MASTER 4 PUPPET MASTER 4 PUPPET MASTER 4
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Flixster Reviews (109)

  • YosemiteSamFan
    July 8, 2007
    YosemiteSamFan
    The Puppet Master series is re-invented. The puppets gain a new master; a computer programmer techno-whiz kid. He commands them to do good things. A new ancient magic Egyptian mythology is introduced, with bad wooden creatuers called "Totems" causing a lot of trouble. The good pu...( read more)ppets must fight them. The same castle on the cliff from the first two movies is used as a setting. I didn't understand the bit about the new "Decapitron" puppet being made. This one was a lot of fun; very enjoyable.
  • jfvirey
    July 5, 2009
    jfvirey
    In the heydays of video rental, I must have seen about twenty of Charles Band's direct-to-video releases, none of which I have rated on this site because they have somewhat faded from my memory, though I still remember the gooey stuff at the bottom of the swimming pool in "Terror...( read more)Vision"; I guess 2 or 2.5 would be the rating for most of them, with the occasional and probably undeserved 3 or 4 when Mac Ahlberg did the photography ("From Beyond" being the stand-out.) I even saw "Parasite" in glorious 3D on the silver screen! For nostalgia's sake, I was in the mood for another of Band's productions, of which IMDb counts no less than 240. What better than a sequel to "Puppet Master", with its endearing cast of doll-like killers ("wooden acting ahead", warned the Horror Channel...)

    I got exactly what I expected, and I spent an enjoyable, if not particularly productive, one hour and sixteen minutes (still the old format, to the minute!)

    "Puppet Master IV" has a completely ludicrous screenplay, in which, say, a scientist will receive what appears to be a figure from a sci-fi shop window and decide to put it -as if in a fit of absent-mindedness- into some kind of oven labeled "Top Secret". Or people will hear weird sounds from the floor above and rush downstairs. Or they will inject a fluorescent substance into puppets to make them come alive, and when the lights go out (but not the computers), simply decide to go to bed and sleep on it. It's that stupid. (It also has a "metaphysics" graduate who specialises in... channeling!)

    But the film has its redeeming qualities, or at least quality: it is visually inventive, in a low-budget sort of way, even though much of its inventiveness is recycled (this may sound like an oxymoron, but at least its visuals were inventive back when they were invented.) The puppets are great, as are the little demons sent by the mail, and the dwarfish monks with luminous eyes from the cramped space set strewn with skeletons. The hero is not too bad (two pointless characters get killed before you realise he actually is the hero), but his sidekick is a Thomas Dolby look-alike who manages to be even more irritating than the original (though fortunately he bursts into singing "She Blinded Me With Science") and (spoiler ahead) gets killed much too late in the film (I think he should have been mercilessly slaughtered before I pressed the play button, but the five screnwriters couldn't reach a unanimous guilty verdict.)

    What I particularly liked about the film was that the new puppet, Decapitron, was actually an adaptation of an idea that Band had introduced in a poster for a film that never got made, a poster I had chanced upon in a movie magazine of the eighties and forgotten. I think it was back during the Robocop / Terminator craze, when they came up with the idea of a robot who could change heads (the way the black guy in "A Man Called Sloane" changed hands; my God, how do I remember that?) The film was scrapped, but the idea was found so neat that the robot was downsized to become one of Toulon's puppets. (I read some reviews complaining that Decapitron never decapitates anyone. Probably the reviewers failed to notice that he owes the name to the fact that he decapitates himself.)

    The film has a very 1980s feel (even though it was shot in 1993) and is just a complete waste of time building up to a duel between doll-sized monsters, but if you like that sort of silliness, you won't be disappointed.
  • kinuman93
    May 24, 2009
    kinuman93
    the beginning of a whole new puppet master. the puppets are good!!! i still love this movie
  • Elentari948
    February 9, 2009
    Elentari948
    One of the weaker films but certainly better than its sequel. The new puppet is kind a deus ex machina thing and they rely on it a little too much. I think that Lauren deserved everything she got, so stupid to be lured into doing her boyfriend's bidding.
  • CallumSanderson
    December 26, 2008
    CallumSanderson
    Photobucket
    the sci-fi film. the puppets are no longer scary ...( read more)but infact friendly!!, Which is actually how it is in the story, the puppets were never "bad" its all due to the master, they do whatever their master tells them, if the master is evil, they will be evil.. if the master is good they will be good! but if the master tries to force them to do something really evil, something they don't want to do they will kill their master! anyway this film was pretty cool! best directed, great special effects, and use of demonictoys/puppet master remix music. The puppet laser tag was pretty cool, the totems were annoying but the fights between the puppets were fun and creative! The story was a pretty good idea to involve the demon Zutekh. Decapatron was cool, but i don't think it really suits Toulon's character.. one confusing thing about this movie is.. did it happen after or before puppet master II? i really don't understand! anyway great stop-motion effects!

    NOTE: I DO NOT OWN THIS ON DVD YET
  • wihyena
    April 22, 2008
    wihyena
    again, i'm a sucker for the full-moon company's horror franchise.
  • DethRabbit3K
    March 21, 2008
    DethRabbit3K
    Pure Full Moon cheese, but somehow still enjoyable.
  • oriongal23
    March 11, 2008
    oriongal23
    lol i use to be scared of this stuff when i was younger, lol now i just watch it for fun!
  • toonami2280
    February 24, 2008
    toonami2280
    watching this one made me want to watch part 5 lol.
  • mikezillatron
    January 12, 2008
    mikezillatron
    oh yeah, puppets rock.

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