• Straight to Video
• Director: Jay Gowey
• Written by: Jay Gowey
• Running Time: 65 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: UNRATED
• Cast: Erica Slider, Tom Wooler, Jamie Rivera, Mez Murray, David C. Hayes, Andrew M. Rose, Andy Zavacky, Nina Tepes, Lavelle Claiborne, Carrie French, Jay Gowey, Dustin Hale, Celena Hiasashi, Jayson James

I have a special place in my heart for killer clown flicks. I also have been known to groove on the odd killer doll flick, so what a surprise it was to stumble upon "Puppet Show" a film that somehow managed to merge both sub-genres into one neat little package. Definitely one of those you got your chocolate in my peanut butter type deals. Granted, while my expectations were looming large, I knew once I inserted the DVD and pushed play that those expectations were about to be dashed. Washed out colors and horribly timber performances, all in the first minute -- yup, this certainly wasn't going to be the Chucky meets John Wayne Gacy gorefest I was hoping for.

But wait, I don't want to be too hard on this patio-budget effort, as I genuinely found myself intrigued by its premise, and I even cracked a smile upon realizing where the film was heading in an FX sense (ie no cheap  CGI, just strings, strings, strings - the way it should be). "Puppet Show" certainly takes its creative cues from one particularly spooky episode of Rod Serling's "Night Gallery" - an episode that cost me many a night's sleep as a child. I also think I spotted a trace of Attenborough's critically acclaimed "Magic" in there but maybe I'm just reaching. Either way, it probably wasn't gonna be all bad, I told myself, and it wasn't.

The killer clown doll (and major selling point of the film) is named Charlie Chowderhead and his back story comprises the film's first fifteen minutes, as a young reporter (Jamie Rivera) wrangles up an interview with Charlie's aged owner, Ringmaster Rick (Tom Wooler) early one morning. Ringmaster Rick and his marionette Charlie Chowderhead were once the stars of a prominent 50's era variety show called "Circus Town", something that intrigues the reporter. Modelled after the old "Howdy Doody" show, Jay Gowey and his crew do a pretty good job of re-creating the look and feel of those goofy variety shows of the past. Sadly, unlike "Howdy Doody", "Circus Town" was cancelled following a terrible accident in which a puppeteer fell to his death during a live taping. Did he fall, or was there something much more ominous going on? Well, this is what trickles out during the impromptu interview.

As it turns out, Rick's wish for world-wide fame involved making a pact with the devil. And, as we all know, when you make a pact with the big guy downstairs, things rarely end well. In this case, Charlie Chowderhead has a real... let's say... killer personality. After the puppeteers live-tv plunge, the follow-up controversy and the show's subsequent cancellation, Rick elected to lock Charlie away in the closet, where he would stay for four plus decades. That is until that afternoon when Rick, looking to impress his young guest, stupidly drags him out of the closet. "Be good," he tells the demonic slab of wood. That's like telling Rush Limbaugh to act like a human being. Not gonna happen. Anyways, let the fun begin.

Mere seconds after the reporter has left the premises, Charlie has wrapped his strings around Rick's neck, and he's pulling them. The puppet pulling the strings, get it. Ha ha. Okay, not so funny. Needless to say, garrotting his puppeteer proves the nice starting point for Charlie's rampage of destruction. At the funeral, Rick's maid (Carrie French) decides to pass down the family curse to the granddaughter Casey (Erica Slider). Casey isn't exactly ecstatic about the gift considering she still suffers horrible nightmares from the time, as a child, she spent the weekend at her grandfather's place. From the closet, the evil doll sexually taunted Casey -- who, up to the procurement of Charlie some twenty years later, has been in denial about the whole thing.

Once Casey gets the doll back to her pad, the film morphs into a by-the-numbers slasher flick - a cool one, as Charlie emerges from his cardboard box to begin a hack and slash campaign so violent that even Chucky, Trilooquist and the Black Devil Doll would sit up and take notice. Using a tiny knife and some ropes, Charlie proves a pretty efficient little killer, and his slow, methodical herky jerky movements harkens back to those Charles Band killer doll flicks that I loved so much in my youth. The climax, although somewhat cliche at this point, proves a fairly interesting closer that neatly seems ready-made for a sequel.

Director Jay Gowey has earned quite good living as a location scout on countless Hollywood movies, but he cut his filmmaking teeth working with one of the legends of b-movies, Ted V. Mikels on his "Mark of the Astro-Zombies" and "Cauldron: Baptism of Blood". With that in mind, it's easy to see why he might choose the freedom and creativity straight to video b-movies offers. His "Puppet Show" isn't a bad film, in fact, I rather enjoyed it. I think Gowey definitely has talent and with time I'm sure he'll craft a genuinely good movie -- even in this backyard movie arena. This film, sadly, isn't it.

Regarding the acting, yeah, it's not great. Tom Wooler and Andy Zavacky both hold their own and they seem genuine delivering dialogue that could have been better written. Sadly, the rest of the cast seems comprised of the type of folks you might find hanging around a strip club in the wee hours of the morning. Nina Tepes is hot and her strip scene (my favourite moment of the film) screams 'pole dancer' but she is dispatched before she has a chance to really act. By the way, I found her death scene to be strikingly gruesome. To the detriment of the film, Erica Slider is the star and, wow, she couldn't act to save her life, which probably explains why she hasn't appeared in another film. Watching her as she attempted to express sadness, anger, fear etc. it's all pretty painful and often devolves into "I just smelled a fart" face. Christ, Charlie was less rigid. The rest of the cast is fodder.

All in all, not bad, but not great.