Doktor Death comes in the line of Full Moon movies that try to achive Charles Band's theme of making his studio the "Marvel Comics" of the 1990s. Horror features that have a comic book tone with the prospect of future crossovers. The last movies that came out this year have been hit and miss. But with this latest spin off, I can make an exception.

The killer Doktor is let loose in a senior living home as working nurses try to figure out what's going on. This entry can be described best as the original movie but set in a nursing home. It offers a good amount of characters that sound interesting on paper. A painter that creates predicting art, a guy who binges on old VHS tapes of the Subspecies movies, a mute woman that knows what's going on and so forth. The only one that nearly ruins it is a pervy old rich man who aims to pinch the rumps on the workers. Thankfully, that doesn't get focused on and it does lead to a kill that was hilaious.

The gore effects are a mixed bag. Some of the kills are standard while others are a bit creative. There's a suspensful scene that involves a laundry room with the bedsheets hanging over and floating like ghosts. That's enough to tell me there is some effort for a low budget affair. The special effects with the killer doll refect the nature on how the kills are staged. As the movie goes on, they do get better. Especially for one particular moment that I can't give away which I thought was impressive.

As said before, this has been a hit and miss year for Full Moon Features. From giant women to fish creatures with jaw-boobs, Doktor Death really tries to bring back the old feel of what Full Moon did. It has a Creepshow vibe that is unique and doesn't go too dark with its premise. I can't say this is the best of the Puppet Master films, but its entertaining enough. How can I complain when we have a senior home that has issues of Fangoria?

On a side note, the movie ends on a cliffhanger that does suggest something. My prediction is that we will get a set of solo features on some of the puppets. We already have one on Blade, so why not? If this is the direction things will go, I'm open to it.

Doktor Death comes from Retro Puppet Master and is the second Puppet Master spin-off after Blade the Iron Cross. It's strange that for some reason, this got to Tubi before I heard anything about it. Even weirder is that it's only an hour but a taunt and tense slasher with good direction by Dave Parker (The Dead Hate the Living!, The Hills Run Red).

This story takes place in the Shady Oaks Senior Living retirement home where a new nurse named April (Jenny Boswell) has shown up at the same time as a resident dies. As the staff looks through his things, they find a footlocker with Doktor Death inside it and before you can say Andre Toulon, that little guy is out and out killing everything in his path. Also, if you're a fan of AEW, The Bunny and The Blade are also in the cast briefly.

Parker is trying to make something great in a few days and this has the gore to back that up, as well as a surprise ending that makes me hope that this isn't the end of this story. It's shot in Charles Bands' Ohio house but it doesn't really need much to look like a nursing home. I was excited to see Melissa Moore show up as a psychic painter and man, how about that image of Doktor Death inside a body, using tendons to make someone walk around?

More hour long better quality Pupper Master movies! This was a blast.

I'm a bit of a fan of the Puppet Master movies and can usually find something fun or intereting about all of them.

Except this one. It's a mess. AND messy. Not gory. Messy as in poorly conceived, realized and directed.

And the puppet becomes a full grown human puppet at one point, confusing the heck out of me.

But the part that really solidifed how bad this movie is was the fact that it literally looks like it was mde for under a thousand bucks.

It has a very strange look to it, almost as if all the sets are CGI and not really there. The color is all muted or filtered so that it's fake looking.

Hard to explain, but it was very unsettling and made the movie hard to concentrate on.

Better luck next time.