10 Horror Movie Monsters Who Make You EAT Your Words

Ventriloquist dummies are pure nightmare fuel, hand puppets are for children, and shadow puppets are a good way of conveying story quickly (seriously, if this isn’t a trope, it ought to be), but the jury’s out on whether ordinary puppets are scary. And, certainly, the story of a group of pint-size puppets, each with their own personality and dress code, coming to life under an Egyptian spell, doesn’t sound anything but goofy kitsch.

But this is the premise of David Schmoeller’s Puppet Master, in which telepath Neil Gallagher (Jimmie F Skaggs) lures four of his old mystical and academic acquaintances to the remote and all-but abandoned Bodega Bay Inn. Upon arrival, they discover his corpse and a mystery the permeates to every corner of the Inn, with strange happenings and killings from the get.

Now, the plot of the film doesn’t stand up to light scrutiny – you will be hard pressed by the end to say why a reanimated Neil brought his old colleagues to the Inn, when they can and do disrupt his well-laid plans. But there is no denying the staying power of the puppets themselves. Their kills are sadistic and bloody (throats slit by tiny knife hands; faces drilled by tiny drill heads) and despite their apparently cutesy façade and laughable stature, they have managed to put the heeb-jeebs in enough people to warrant fourteen additional films to date!