Friday, May 10, 2024

The Puppet Masters (1994)

A surprisingly good alien invasion film.

An alien lifeform lands in Ohio and takes possession of humans by sticking it's probes into human brains. Government agent Nivens (Donald Sutherland) is investigating the reported landing of a UFO, which seems to be an obvious fake but the locals are acting strangely, quickly resorting to violence to stop any investigation. 

He and his fellow agents Sam (his son) (Eric Thal) and Mary (Julie Warner) discover that horrible fast reproducing manta ray like alien creatures are possessing people in town and looking to possess as many people as possible.

A race against time begins as the agents and military try to contain the aliens and find a way to defeat them, without killing their human hosts.

A fine film though maybe stretches the plot a little too far (plus there are some obvious flaws in the alien plans and methods which the humans fail to notice). The alien visuals are pretty gruesome at times and make good use of the modest budget. The action is frequent though can be a bit ropey at times. Overall though this is pretty enjoyable.