Director: Lisa Ovies

Writer: Kevin Mosley

Starring: Aleks Paunovic, Lee Majdoub, Lisa Durupt, Richard Harmon, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Kyle Cassie, Geoff Gustafson,

Rating: ★★★

Horror and Comedy has always gone hand in hand. There’s always parodies of the scariest or most extreme films and a lot of horror has comedic elements anyway. Puppet Killer is an over-the-top all-out comedy horror that holds nothing back to get a laugh. It may outstay its welcome, but this is the perfect film for a film night with friends and is destined to become a cult classic.

Jamie (Aleks Paunovic) has been raised on horror films; he is beyond obsessed with them. His mother made it a tradition for them to watch them together, and he kept that alive after she passed. He keeps Simon, a puppet that his mother game him, around himself at all times. One night, his stepmother takes away Jamie’s horror VHS tapes, thinking they aren’t suitable for a child. The puppet then comes alive and kills the stepmother. Ten years later Jamie and his friends go back to the cabin where it happened and find that Simon is still living there.

This is a ridiculous film that doesn’t take itself seriously at all. The puppet looks like something from Sesame Street and not from a horror film. Lee Majdoub does the voice for Simon and it’s funny every time you hear it. Most of the kills parody classic horror films from The Shining to Friday the 13^th. Simon in the hocky mask is brilliant.

The effects are surprisingly good. When the stepmother is murdered at the beginning, there’s a jump-scare that actually works, and then the killing is more brutal than you would expect from something like this. Her ankle is slit open, and it looks pretty gruesome. There are a few other deaths that look great as well. To top it off, you can clearly see that most of the actors are still breathing after being killed. It’s little things that make it so funny.

One of the best jokes about the film is the actor’s ages. It’s a staple of horror films for older people to be playing teenagers. Puppet Killer takes this to another level. Jamie is about eight when his stepmother dies, it then jumps ten years into the future and Jamie is played by Aleks Paunovic, who was around fifty when the film was shot. He has a stubble and is not convincing at all as a teenager, but that’s the point. The whole cast is like this. There is something very funny about a group of middle-aged people pretending to be teenagers. Jamie is also very naïve and has the joyfulness of a much younger child, so it’s a fifty-year-old playing an eighteen-year-old, who has the mind of a ten-year-old. The joy on his face whenever he picks up Simon is unbeatable. The actor is even older than the one playing his dad, it’s genius casting.

Puppet Killer has a lot of laugh out loud moments. It does feel slightly too long, and the joke outstays its welcome, but there’s still funny moments towards the end. The ages of the actors keeps coming around and brings a laugh and the killer puppet is so ridiculous that it is always funny.

Puppet Killer will be available on Digital Download from 29th November

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