The fourth entry of the Puppet Master franchise continues directly into the fifth and finds Rick having been arrested for all of the murders that took place at the inn. He tells a wild story of puppets and demons and it makes him sound absolutely crazy and yet, somehow he manages to make bail. Also making bail is Blade, who was taken into possession when Rick was arrested. That gives Rick a reason to go back to the Inn where his new boss is searching the building for the puppets, not realizing or maybe not believing the story about the demons of which there is now another totem running loose, this time with the demon Sutekh firmly in control of it. Events play out similar to those of the previous film with everyone living happily ever after.

For the most part, this fifth film is identical to the fourth and in that fact; it is a bit of a disappointment. Things were tied up nice and neat at the end of that picture, but with Sutekh still in Hell and looking to kill all those who know about the formula, it of course made it easy to make another film where he now takes matters into his own hands and comes to Earth in the body of his own totem. The special effects still leave a lot to be desired; specifically dealing with Sutekh, yet the rest of the film is not all that bad, especially with how the puppets are animated. If there is one thing that has remained consistent over the course of the series, it is the fact that the puppets always look and move as how you would expect them to. Decapitron, the newest puppet who was introduced in the last picture also makes a return and we get to see him in action a little more as he switches heads to perform different functions. An interesting fact about Decapitron is that Full Moon was going to produce a picture before this series ever took off to compete with Robocop, yet somewhere along the way it never happened and instead, Decapitron ended up here as a puppet. So while the story itself left a lot to be desired, at least some of the elements of said tale made it worth watching.

Gordon Currie reprises his role as Rick; Ian Ogilvy joins the cast and Guy Rolfe shows up as Ghost Toulon once again to lend a helping hand. Also in the picture are everyone’s favourite puppets, this time joined by Torch who was mysteriously absent last picture. Currie is decent, and everyone does their best to make this as good a movie as they can, but the whole demons angle should have been dropped for something else as it just made the movie more ridiculous than it already was, what with the living puppets and all.

The Final Chapter is definitely not the best in the series nor the last as the title would imply, but it was entertaining at the very least.

2.5 out of 5