Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 19, 2018

There are too many Puppet Master films to list individually but needless to say the series has been a Horror genre staple over the past few decades, beginning, obviously, with the original and including a number of sequels/prequels/etc. of varying qualities, though it hasn't been until the most recent films that the quality has taken a significant nosedive, when it's become apparent that keeping production costs low has trumped worthwhile filmmaking. Sadly that trend continues with Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, a soft reboot that sets the story in the present day, 30 years after the "Toulon Murders." But it's all just an excuse to eventually allow the puppets to murder victims in variously grotesque ways. The film ends with a somewhat surprising revelation and the promise of a sequel which will hopefully be a little more dramatically robust and better crafted than this.

Edgar (Thomas Lennon), a comic shop employee and budding comic artist, has just had his life turn upside down after a separation from his wife. He’s now living with his mother and domineering and disappointed father. When scrounging through an old box he finds in his deceased brother’s closet, he finds a puppet -- Blade -- and decides to sell the doll, which is worth several thousand dollars. He runs into an old acquaintance, Ashley (Jenny Pellicer), and they begin a hot-and-heavy courtship. Edgar decides that is his best course of action for selling the puppet is to go to a convention celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the Toulon murders; what better place to find a buyer than a hotel full of fans? He, Ashley, and his friend and co-worker Markowitz (Nelson Franklin) make the journey but quickly realize that the puppets have come to life and have murder on the mind.

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich is a victim of the bad movie trifecta, none of which are necessarily debilitating individually but that collectively always produce a poor end product. A wayward script, cheap production values (beyond mostly practical prosthetics and gore), and substandard acting all considerably drag the movie down, each in their own way and two are often byproducts of the third. It's a vicious circle-cycle from which the film cannot escape, even when its vicious killings take center-stage. The leads are uninteresting and their back stories are all but worthless. The entire first act is an exercise in storytelling futility, which is made all the more dismal when the film spends the entire second act killing off random characters in particularly gruesome and grotesque ways -- this is easily the most violent entry ever in the Puppet Master series -- as the primaries do little more than sit around or make out while carnage plays out next door or down the hotel hallway. By the third act, when everyone is keenly aware of what's happening, the film transitions into a low tension and predictable survival story as Edgar, Ashley, Markowitz, and a handful of other characters, including the police, hole up in the hotel in hopes of finding some means of escape from the puppets. The end at least gives longtime series fans something to chew on, but the lead-up is often excruciating at best and intolerable at worst.

At first, the Nazi puppets (hence the title The Littlest Reich) only kill those individuals Nazis find deplorable, like Jews and homosexuals, but the killings eventually become a free-for-all once the third act rolls around and law enforcement and comic book artists become "good enough" targets once most of the "undesirables" have been taken care of. Gore aficionados can at least look forward to some grotesque kills along the way that range from simple stabbings and slicing all the way to a pregnant woman whose unborn baby is ripped from her womb after a puppet enters her vaginally and bursts through the stomach. Disembowelments are common, a man's head is severed and falls in the toilet (and his own lifeless body urinates on it) and the filmmakers make sure all of the puppets -- some new, some returning, all deadly -- get a few choice kills that accentuate whatever their weapons of choice may be, whether stabbing and slicing weapons or flame-throwers. So, basically, fans of crazy-insane gore are probably going to love it while anyone in search of a story will probably not.

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc. Watch for 4K screenshots at a later date.

One would be hard-pressed to spot any meaningful differences between this 2160p 4K UHD release of Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich and the 1080p Blu-ray. The images are practically identical from a textural standpoint, and both feature what appears to be the same 8-bit SDR color presentation; there has been no HDR processing performed on this UHD release. If one squints, there may be a very modest uptick in sharpness, but when performing an A-B comparison there's just nothing that jumps out as a meaningful improvement in that regard. Compression does seem to be handled a little better on the UHD, and while problems like noise and banding were problematic but never debilitating on the Blu-ray, that the UHD handles such things with a little more finesse is of modest value. The UHD also plays at a much higher bitrate, often double or more looking at the meter onboard the Oppo UDP-203. But without squinting and playing the numbers game, just looking at the movie from normal viewing distances, there's not really a compelling reason to choose the UHD over the Blu-ray, even if the price difference is the matter of just a few dollars.

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Even though it's a lower-budget movie, Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack is no slouch, acoustically. The track never fails to expand and extend as any given scene demands, and the second and third acts are particularly aggressive. There is some good zip and zoom, back to front, and side to side movement as the drone puppet named Autogyro, who is new to this film, flies through the stage and disembowels or beheads a victim. Gunshots ring out with a surprisingly decent pop-pop-pop-bang and depth. A briefly heard raging fire in chapter eight engulfs the stage with impressive wrap and weight, and the sonic coup de grâce is a big, sweeping, high bass output electric current that plays a critical part in the narrative in the final ten minutes. Music is never as intensive as these few admittedly one-off effects, but essential clarity and front-end width are fine. Dialogue is generally clear and detailed, though some of the exchanges with the "creepy man" in the bar at the beginning of the movie are a little hard to hear.

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich contains several featurettes and a photo gallery, which can be found both on the UHD (in 1080p) and on the bundled Blu-ray. No digital copy is included. The release ships with an embossed slipcover.

• Behind the Scenes of Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (1080p, 5:55): Shooting in Dallas, makeup and prosthetics, shooting locations, stunt work, and fan response to the production.
• The Cast of Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (1080p, 6:55): As the title suggests, this piece explores several of the key cast and the characters they portray.
• Puppets: From Concept to Creation (1080p, 1:44): Character sketches and digital layouts against character clips form the film.
• Lightning Girl Comic: From Sketch to Final (1080p, 0:40): Sketches that would become Edgar's finished product comic seen in the film.
• Photo Gallery (1080p): A collection of stills from the set. Images only advance with a press of the chapter skip button.

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich does nothing to rekindle whatever sparks have carried the franchise through three decades of movies. This one is a simple schlock-fest, which is fine for those not particularly concerned with story and characterization. The end promises something different than "murdering puppets" for the sequel, and it'll be interesting if it can add a few new tricks or just turn into more of the same. Fans of extreme violence will find the movie somewhat rewarding, but they would be best served by chapter skipping ahead and bypassing all of the worthless character setup. This UHD release offers no compelling reason to choose it over the Blu-ray. There's minuscule-at-best improvements to video and no change to audio or supplements. Buy the Blu-ray instead.