Winner of Best Animated Film at the 2011 Motor City Nightmares Film Festival, The Puppet Monster Massacre is the best kind of B-movie- wild, delirious, psychotic, funny, graphic, gory and just plain nuts.

In other words, you gotta' see it.

Written and directed by Dustin Mills, this puppet extravaganza is about a group of teenagers who are challenged to spend a night in the Wagner mansion on the edge of town. Our unsuspecting teenagers don't realize that the mansion's owner, Dr. Wagner (Voiced by Steve Rimpici), has concocted a monstrosity in the mansion's basement and plans to make our teenage risk-takers the monster's first big meal.

Reminiscent of the campy 80's monster flicks and the flicks that are still made by Troma, The Puppet Monster Massacre is likely to either completely repulse you or leave you bent over laughing and horrified with it all. If Team America had gone way more psychotic and chosen to be a much darker film, it might've looked like The Puppet Monster Massacre. Charlie (Ethan Holey) lives at home with his grandpa (Bart Flynn). He has a crush on Gwen (Jessica Daniels), but has never worked up the nerve to do anything about it. Raimi (Dustin Mills), one of our teenagers, is obviously meant as a loving tribute to Sam Raimi and, in fact, is probably the film's most delightful character.

While The Puppet Monster Massacre is obviously a low-budget film, it's a low-budget film that has been crafted by a talented that cares about its final product. The story (by Mills) is well written, the puppet work is exceptional and the film's visual effects are surprisingly spot on perfect. While not every joke lands perfectly, the majority of them do and the film's voice ensemble is uniformly strong.

Be warned, however, that The Puppet Monster Massacre is not for the timid. While Team America was known for its graphic sex scene, it's nothing compared to the sex and violence contained within this film. If you're one of the many who enjoy low-budget indie horror with a tongue firmly planted within the cheek, then renting this MVD Visual home video release should be considered a high priority.

© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic