Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter (1994)

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“The Final Chapter” of the Puppet Master series isn’t the final Puppet Master movie, but it’s definitely the final installment of the true series for me. I consider the rest of the installments nothing but filler and greatest hit clip compilations. In the first two films, we watched the evil puppets and their master Toulon wreak havoc, part three was the origin of how Toulon became evil and how the puppets were once capable of good, and the final two installments are Toulon and his puppets redeeming themselves by saving the world from interdimensional demons.

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Psycho (1998)

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You have to wonder if Gus Van Sant either garners an enormous amount of hubris, or just has a masochistic streak in him. Why else would he dive head first in to a remake of a hallowed horror and cinematic classic? And why else would he deliver a remake that’s exactly shot for shot? And “Psycho 1998” isn’t a remake that’s shot for shot with some liberties taken. It’s shot for shot to where director Van Sant copies every single shot of the original film, except with new actors. Van Sant fills the remake with a surreal tone in the vein of David Lynch to where the movie is adrift in a time period blurred between the fifties and contemporary time.

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Psycho (1960)

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Director Alfred Hitchcock managed to set a precedent in 1960, not only for creating one of the greatest psychological thrillers, but for films that could become masterpieces despite their low budget. He also helped pave the way for the classic shocking twist that many directors continue copying today. Adapted from the novel that was based on the murders of Ed Gein, Hitchcock offers film-goers as much twists and turns as possible while managing to scare us at the same time. “Psycho” is the psychological examination of the twisted human psyche, the darkness in every human as Hitchcock was brilliant in conveying.

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Pinocchio’s Revenge (1996)

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With “Pinocchio’s Revenge,” it feels as if Director and Writer Kevin Tenney concocted an entire script based on a serial killer whose spirit inhabits his beloved Pinocchio doll and begins wreaking havoc on a hot mom and her daughter. And then mid-way he thought that perhaps it’d skirt legal issues, and then he suddenly transformed it in to a dull whodunit dramatic thriller. That’s the only way I can figure the logic for the title, at all. There’s no actual revenge, and in the end there’s not a lot of reasoning for Pinocchio to commit these crimes. But at least there’s still the hot mom.

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Pacific Rim (2013) [Blu-ray]

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Though we may never get to see director Guillermo Del Toro’s vision of “At the Mountains of Madness,” that doesn’t mean “Pacific Rim” isn’t without its Lovecraftian influences. There’s the deep sea monsters, the beings from another dimension, giant tentacled beings, and the implications of something bigger to come. “Pacific Rim” is set in a world where kaiju are a natural phenomenon and the world is built around the constant threat of attacks from giant beasts that didn’t come from the sky, but instead the bottom of the sea through an inter dimensional rift.

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Perished (2011)

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Despite its brutally predictable ending, the Australian short zombie film “Perished” is a grueling and terrifying horror entry. Once again, a storyteller has the idea to feature less zombie carnage and explore the minutiae of survival where every little step dictates whether you live or die by tooth and nail of the walking dead.

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Phantom of the Megaplex (2000)

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I think one of the reasons why the DCOM “Phantom of the Megaplex” has now gone on to basic obscurity is that it’s one of the weirder movies the Disney Channel ever produced. It’s not just an ode to the love of movies, but it’s a call back to “The Phantom of the Opera.” Not only does the film draw heavily from the original story, sans the violence and murder, but it actually influences its audience to check out the Lon Chaney masterpiece. “Phantom of the Megaplex” is a busy and often messy horror fantasy, but one that works, mainly because the writers of the film clearly love movies as much as we do.

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