Shadow Puppets (2007) User Reviews (34)

T'Pol in her underpants

[siderite · 6/10 · 25 July 2009]

You know those times in Star Trek Enterprise when we were wondering what the hell does Steve Bakula do and then the writers of the show would gave us one of those "almost naked T'Pol" moments to calm us down? Well, somebody thought making an entire movie on the concept would be nice.

It is not such a bad movie, after all, though. I mean, yeah, the premise is ridiculous, the monster pathetic and the acting poor, but then there is Jolene Blalock, in her underpants! And if it is not enough for you, Natasha Alam looks good enough to eat and she gets a completely naked scene. And if this doesn't do it for you, Buffy fame Spike is there, joined by Candyman's Tony Todd.

BTW, look Tony Todd up. He is at his 136th movie and still acting strong, even if only in secondary roles. When they say supporting role, Tony understands supporting the movie industry. Lol.

So, let's sum it up: the smoke monster from Lost hunts T'Pol, Spike and Candyman in an underground facility where no one remembers who they are. And that's the original part of the movie ;)

Fanboys Dream Cast In An Average Movie

[danthewrestlingmanorigin · 6/10 · 23 September 2007]

Man I was hoping for so much more here. I am a die hard Buffy fan and eagerly anticipated a featured role for Marsters. Tony Todd in my view is one of the great actors working today in any genre, and Jolene was one of the bright spots of a dreary Enterprise. Not to mention I love the basic premise, and am a big fan of Cube. Sadly Shadow Puppets mostly falls into the average category. The acting is good, and there is a twist at the end that may surprise you. I believe the majority of the budget was spent on assembling the cast. I was okay with the generic smoke monster, it was what it was, and it was probably better to do something simple instead of a poor CGI creature. The film is never really that scary or suspenseful and there aren't any clever kills or gore moments so that may hurt it in the eyes of those looking for a Saw or Cube. Because of the cast I was hoping for more, but if it were Lorenzo Lamas and Shannon Tweed headlining my review would be less critical. Still it's a "slightly" above average film with a good cast.

Don't take this movie too seriously, and then you'll enjoy it.

[gibzy7 · 5/10 · 16 July 2007]

I saw this movie for one and only reason that James Marsters is in it, and as I expected, the movie itself was quite bad. Actually no, the first 20 minutes were pretty good, while you still didn't know what was going on, and before you got a good look at the monster. And while the girls were still in their undies of course. But then it just went downhill.

The acting was not great, but at least nothing as amateurish as in Saw. James Marsters was good as always(but then, he can never do wrong in my book:P), the black guys were scary, the girls were hot, and that's pretty much all that was required from them.

The ending of the movie was promising to reach the all-time low, but then I think the director realized that, and opted for a genius solution. Yes, bring back the girls in undies. Explanation? Because the monster don't kill you if you're in your undies. That's right. And what happened to that black girl who didn't take off her skirt in time? Nothing good, that's for sure. Let this be a lesson to all you ladies out there.

And at the very end you just gotta laugh. And if you see this movie with that easy-mind kind of attitude, then you'll mildly enjoy it. Better yet, watch it stoned.

The first 20 minutes made me give this movie the first 2 stars; James Marsters pushed it to 4, and the semi-naked girls bumped it up to 7.

It 's awful

[sdv30-1 · 1/10 · 19 July 2007]

This is one of the worst movies I have seen - and believe me I have seen my fair share of crap. The plot is horrendous and the dialog is laughably bad. The acting is in general bad, but for the most part, the actors do not have anything to work with in terms of script, and that is a valid excuse in this movie. On second thought, the one actor who really seems painfully wooden is Winnick, who probably got the role as the director's brother/cousin or something. For the rest, at least you can tell they are professional. The monster special effects are bad. The ending is ridiculous, with the sun coming up fast, so that the heroes can be saved. There was no suspense, and in the end I was hoping the stupid monster would kill and eat everyone and then die of indigestion. In order to see how the interesting scenario of waking up without memory was developed into a good movie a couple of years back, you can watch "Unknown" (2006). Just save your brain cells and skip this one.

"Saw" plus "Cube" plus "Some supernatural stuff" minus "Story" minus "Realy anything to say" = Shadow Puppets

[ToalettKukac · 1/10 · 4 July 2007]

Don't waist your time.

I believe the writer, after seeing cube and saw, decided he would write and direct something similar. And to make things more interesting, would add some ghost stuff. Well i believe this idea sucks on its own (you don't just decide to "hey, Godfather was a hit, I think I'll make something likewise", and then start writing a story), but what makes this even worse is that Micheal (the writer) has no creativity. The story is dull and dumb. Period.

Suspense, yeah, for the first 10mins, cause you have to wonder whats going on. But once you are made to understand, you go "Oh my god,.... is that it???" and turn off the movie.

Its not exiting, its not trilling, and its definitely not worth any ones time.

Take Your Clothes Off. It Makes You Less Of A Target.

[wandernn1-81-683274 · 3/10 · 14 February 2022]

This one appeared in my recommended based on list on Amazon, so I decided to take a look. Boy I don't know where they get these movies to recommend to me. Aside from the filming location and a little bit of side boob this movie has pretty much no redeeming qualities. Oh and the appearance of Candyman in the movie is always welcome. However the rest of the movie was bad, especially near the end when the reveal comes and the creature starts offing everyone en masse. 3/10.

Intriguing and Suspenseful

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 27 July 2007]

A woman (Jolene Blalock) and a man (James Marsters) awake in individual white cells in an abandoned prison or mental institution wearing only underwear and without any memory. They hear a strange and creepy noise and decide to look for a way out of the facility. They meet six other strangers in the same situation and one of them is attacked and killed by a shadow. While trying to escape from the place and the shadow, they find the brain washing apparatus with the indication that had been used eight times. When they meet the ninth stranger, they realize that one of them is lying and knows what have happened with them.

In 1997, the outstanding "Cube" showed a situation of strangers trapped in a room without knowing how and the reason. The use of this concept was repeated in many other films, among them "Saw" and "House of 9". "Shadow Puppets" in this regard is not original, using the same idea of eight strangers without memory trapped in a facility. The noisy shadow is a rip-off of the smoke monster of "Lost". However, the story is intriguing and suspenseful, has a good twist, the actors and actresses leaded by Jolene Clalock, James Masters and Tony Todd have good performances and the special effects are also good. The resolution is reasonable, but the greatest flaw is that the characters should be naked to survive since the shadow could feel the clothes. But I liked this enjoyable movie. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Sombra" ("The Shadow")

Don't be fooled!

[akov · 1/10 · 4 July 2007]

It is the actors and director voting 10 for themselves giving the movie a good rating to make it sell better. Notice that when a really bad film gets good reviews (around 7-10 in rating) it always have a lot of good comments about the "actors" in it. This movie is nothing but a ripoff, mastery of bad acting and a script who makes you wanna scream in agony. The parallels between Cube is so clear it is sad. Also, compare the plot summary with the film Unknown (2006) and you'll be surprised (or maybe not). If I was a part of this movie I would see the result as a complete failure and quit my job. Voting 10 for your own mistake is nothing but pure scam. These persons should be ashamed. I am, for their miserable sake.

Not entirely bad just not interesting enough

[chrichtonsworld · 4/10 · 18 July 2007]

"Shadow Puppets" is movie that has a great cast and a great premise! The biggest problem with this movie that it isn't thrilling! Not one moment you get scared! The ghost isn't threatening enough! The shadow ghost is an interesting concept! It is too bad that they didn't use this idea to it's full potential! But this is a problem the whole movie has! The lack of ambiance! It should be key in a movie like this! It could have been overlooked if they had put in some wonderful twist that would have explained the ghost and actually showed how this ghost was created! We do get some explanation on the situation! But by the time we do you couldn't care less because you were bored to death! The predictable story and the lack of thrills make this a movie that is not worth watching !

I enjoyed it a lot

[the_rickker · 8/10 · 4 October 2007]

I'm not a big fan of the Horror genre, but I did really like this movie. As a big sci-fi fan I was attracted to this from the main actors. It was a bit predictable and cliché at points there were actual surprises. Check the extras after the movie. James Marsters is a very talented actor that I have had the pleasure to meet at a con. Very nice and personable. Tony Todd is brilliant, has been all over the genre scene both horror and sci-fi. Joline Blalock is very talented as well as gorgeous. The others in the cast did a good enough job, esp the swimming girl. Highly recommended for fans of the actors or of the horror genre.

Underground in undies.

[Someguysomwhere · 7/10 · 23 August 2007]

What can I say? I'm a big fan of horror (as well as science fiction, and anything generally weird). If you too are a fan you will be entertained by this movie. It's a "trapped-and-hunted" movie which is a common enough plot idea, but the delivery had some originality and was very entertaining.

Basically, an unlikely mix of people (one's a nympho, for instance) wake up (separately) to find themselves in a cell in underwear with no knowledge of who they are or where they are except that they are captives of some sort. They are able to leave their cells and walk around and in so doing they eventually run into each other. There mission is of course to find out who they are, where they are, and generally: What the heck is going on!!!

I don't want to say anything more and ruin it for the rest of you. Suffice to say that you will be entertained, especially if you are into horror and sci-fi like I am. Finally, it's really hard to find a good scary horror movie these days, isn't it? Sometimes I think it's a lost art and nobody out there really knows how to scare the crap out of you anymore. In fairness, maybe it's harder to scare today's crowd who've been there, done that. I guess we've lost our innocence and the challenge for any moviemaker these days is to find the child in us and say- "Boo!" Love, Boloxxxi.

Boring, tedious and uneventful...

[paul_haakonsen · 3/10 · 5 February 2021]

I hadn't heard about this 2007 movie titled "Shadow Puppets" before now, as I sat down in 2021 to watch the movie. All I knew was that it was a horror / thriller, and I do like horror movies, so of course I gave "Shadow Puppets" a chance.

And talk about being a snooze fest. This movie was incredibly slow paced, and to make matters worse, then the storyline was completely devoid of anything interesting, which just prolonged the suffering of sitting through the movie.

As the movie trotted on, slowly losing me in the curve, then all the sudden Tony Todd showed up, and my interest in the movie was given a jolt. But it was short-lived, as not even this horror icon could do much of anything to improve on a dying storyline, nor to quicken up the monotonous pacing of the movie.

I made it about one hours into this ordeal, and believe you me, I wasn't impressed, much less actually entertained. But I wanted to give the movie a proper chance. But writer and director Michael Winnick just utterly failed to deliver anything worthwhile watching here.

Now, the acting in the movie was, for the most parts, wooden and rigid. The performances, generally speaking, were just lacking conviction and enthusiasm.

The movie does, however, have a nice enough atmosphere to it. But that could only do so much to lift up an otherwise complete train wreck.

My rating of "Shadow Puppets" lands on a generous three out of ten stars, mostly because of the atmosphere, but also because Tony Todd was here after all. If you enjoy proper horror movies, then "Shadow Puppets" is an ill-advised choice to watch.

Ugh...horrible...includes slight spoilers.

[joefcos · 1/10 · 14 March 2008]

Honestly, one of the worst movies I've seen in years. Credit to James Marsters for being the only one in the movie who was even slightly believable. Jolene Blalock was especially bad in this film. The rest of the cast was pretty damn terrible as well, including horror vet Tony Todd. As for the premise, it was obvious from moment one that Marsters would be revealed as the "bad guy." The way the shadow monster was used was also terribly inconsistent from one scene to another. It's supposed to be afraid of and vulnerable to light, but first manifests on camera in a brightly lit medical lab, and later manifest in a brightly lit pool. Too many plot holes, inconsistencies, and downright terrible lines, combined with largely phoned-in awful performances by the cast, and horrendous directing combine to make this movie one of the least frightening, un-entertaining pieces of film fluff in recent years.

Poor in so many ways

[kwsand-1 · 2/10 · 10 July 2007]

I've read reviews posted here stating that this movie "is a treat." We must have been watching different movies. Aside from Jolene Blalock and Natasha Alam running around in their underwear for most of the movie, there was very little to consider a treat.

The special effects were B-movie at best, the acting was poor, the story felt like it has already been done, I didn't care about any of the characters, and the dialog was uninteresting at best. I would not recommend this movie unless you are a HUGE Jolene Blalock fan(are there any out there?).

I gave it a 2 base solely on the fact that its not the worst movie I've ever seen, that distinction belongs to Daredevil.

Spike deserves better, Candyman continues his downhill trajectory

[movieman_kev · 2/10 · 27 July 2012]

Worthless little film about a group of people who wake up with amnesia and trapped in an underground prison. They're also attacked by shadow creatures. There's really not much more to it, this movie is sincerely dreadful

James Marsters gives his all in a vain attempt to save this crappy little, predictable, Boeing little film. Meanwhile, This, unbelievable as it may seem, is not Tony Todd's worst film with Shadow in the title. Seriously, the guy really needs a better agent and fast.

Eye Candy: Natasha Alam shows T&A, Jolene Blalock offers quick butt

My grade: D-

a treat for horror fans

[uhlili · 7/10 · 3 September 2006]

I was fortunate to see a special preview of Shadow Puppets. I don't want to give away anything but I will say this: The movie keeps you in suspense from beginning to end, has a believable script, unique special effects, an original premise, and many jump-out-of-your-seat moments. The soundtrack and unusual sound effects increase the terror-level in many scenes. Jolene Blalock and James Marsters are excellent but newcomer Mark Winnick is an actor to watch: he has the best lines and delivers them with adorable ingenuousness. I will definitely see this movie again when it is released in theaters, and look forward to more films by director Michael Winnick.

Disappointing...

[teodoramonika · 3/10 · 18 July 2021]

2.5 / 10.

The lead actress 'acting is desperate and disappointing and pretty much spoils the impression of the film. I liked the theme except for the idea with the shadow... It is also poorly and poorly realized. The ending is predictable and common for films like this, there is no surprise, which I also don't like.

See if you have nothing smarter or to kill time.

Simple concept, good result

[unbrokenmetal · 7/10 · 23 April 2010]

I enjoyed it. The basic concept is simple, of course: let's make a version of 'Cube' that is more down to earth/without the math, try even to give nice explanations for the apparently supernatural, get a few familiar faces since there are only 8 roles to be cast, and then give the picture a rusty, blood splattered look - thus it will appeal not only to the sci-fi audience, but also to the horror fans. Fair enough for a genre movie which wants to make a bit of money. 'Shadow Puppets' surely creates an atmosphere of uneasiness when none of the characters remembers who he/she is, and information is revealed only much later. It's none of the "it's Halloween again" flicks that keeps the audience awake only with a killing every five minutes, actually I think nobody at all was killed in the first half. So this may be worth checking out if you are not into horror in the first place, but also some more psychological thrillers.

I'd rather eat babies...

[mrmannn · 2/10 · 13 August 2007]

...Than watch another minute of this movie. Wtf are they thinking? Even IF this gets semi-entertaining by the end... The dialog and performances (hah, performances) are so terrible it makes the movie unwatchable beyond the first 20 minutes. I have no respect for this movie, or its auteur writer/director. Somebody, please, give this guy a slinky to distract him before he gets money together for another one of his "visions." Blech.

P.S. Sorry Marsters, you picked a BAD project to debut your "film" career.

P.S.S IMDb is telling me I need to have more lines in my comment in order to post it. I thought I covered it all succinctly, but I guess not. Hmm, what to say? Got nothing. This movie just plain sucks, even for horror fans and Spike lovers. I'm out to go wax my shaft with a Brillo pad. It's that, or finish this movie :P

Pretty good thriller

[Mattias · 8/10 · 29 July 2007]

I didn't know anything about this movie before I started watching it. As it turned out, I was happy to find a well made thriller. Obviously it didn't have the Titanic (1997) budget but the filmmakers managed to achieve the necessary mood with what they had.

The only disappointment was the evil spirit itself who looks like Disney's The Phantom Blot. In _The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)_ (qv) Jonathan Shields says that a good scary movie only needs haunting music, shadows that move in the darkness and so on, not a man dressed in a monkey suit. The menacing evil being should have kept to the shadows, up front it doesn't look very frightening.

It has been claimed that this movie is a rip off of other movies. I haven't seen any of them so I'm judging this movie on its own merits - 8/10.

Not that bad

[johnbamber-543-390505 · 6/10 · 13 March 2022]

It's definitely an enjoyable movie. Is the acting great? Nah. Are the special effects incredible? Nah, but the story is pretty interesting and I've found that this movie did keep my attention even while I was playing on my computer with it on in the background. If you like Horror B-Movies, check this one out. It's entertaining. Maybe have your favorite alcoholic beverage nearby... :)

Writer is a computer idiot

[rang0319 · 3/10 · 7 July 2007]

Could have been great, writing and directing destroyed this movie.

Oh, I need to bring the network up to turn the power off... What's a network asks the writer? Someone break out the dictionary... a network is two or more computers says dictionary. So we have to wait until the second computer is running to bring that little network up, to turn the power off? Whats the function of that second computer? The writer should have consulted with at least one technical person. Idiot.

Where is the front door of this hospital? Is this the worst sunrise scene ever filmed? Unfortunately, the first 15 minutes of the film were incredible, but dies a fast death from there.

watch it for free here at IMDb, otherwise no

[dutchchocolatecake · 5/10 · 2 June 2012]

What happens when you put the movies Unknown and Hypercube into a blender; add a dash of Lost and hit puree? This.

Pros: fairly competent acting, good set/props, good sound effects, good music, a steady plot and a race with your own mind to see if you can figure out the puzzle before it's explained.

Cons: race/sex stereotyping. Character creation is weak in this sense. There's already too many movies where the characters of black men are violent, or are the first to die. This movie does both. The nympho is a hot supermodel. What a colossal, predictable YAWN.

With that said, the only reason this movie is a worthwhile time killer - other than a juvenile need to snicker at mental wards inadvertently modeling Calvin Klein underwear - are all the elements stolen from other wildly popular entertainment media.

I have no problem with people taking creative license with ideas not their own. After all, you can't copyright an idea. But the plot from start to finish is nearly identical to that of Hypercube (except there are two survivors); with the beginning and ending of Unknown; with a monster and character cast from Lost. That's really all there is to it. I wanted to give it higher stars, but this collage of celluloid just isn't original enough on it's own.

Even the underwear is questionable. At least when I saw Kate from Lost in her underwear, I didn't feel a compulsion to pick at my butt. That's how bad the underwear looks on the women. What mental hospital puts women in *boy short* style undies? That's just dumb. At least give them briefs so they can have a little dignity. For heaven's sakes.

What I thought about this movie

[alesclavon · 5/10 · 22 December 2011]

I found this refreshing from the usual vampire, zombie, slasher movies. This movie fits in to the mold of the classic The Thing for the simple fact that you don;t who is out to get you. With that the story was good. On the other hand the acting could have been better. Some of the characters seem lost in the scenes and I give Tony Todd props for trying to keep the story up and going. But it still falls short. It's worth a one time watch if nothing more. If you are streaming for a movie to watch for a long trip just to go to sleep. This is the one. Or a overnight party with friends that like horror flicks that are some what campy but easy on the eyes.

No Strings Attached

[shawnblackman · 5/10 · 16 November 2016]

A woman wakes up dressed only in her underwear, in a padded room, with no memory at all. She soon discovers there are more people like her with no recollection of anything. While trying to figure out where they are, a shadow creature is picking them off one by one.

This wasn't bad. Tony Todd joins the cast playing the patient with violent tendencies. The film is similar to Cube (1997) with the unknowns and how they find more people as they explore. They up the ante by throwing in a shadow monster.

Moves along at a good pace revealing more and more as the film progresses.