History Film / AttackOfThePuppetPeople

* UsefulNotes/StockholmSyndrome: Possibly with the other four puppet people that Bob and Sally meet. It's a bit unclear how long they've been with him, but it seems to have kicked in by now. However, once Franz disappears, they do make attempts to contact someone else for help. Some have accepted their fate until [[spoiler: they find out Franz has planned a murder/suicide and they snap out of the Stockholm Syndrome and try to save themselves.]]

* TakingYouWithMe: When the doll-maker is about to be connected to [[spoiler: all the vanishing people, he decides mass murder/suicide is a better alternative to being alone.]]

* DirtyOldMan: Franz shows a particularly creepy behavior once he shrinks Sally, his assistant, and she's of course now naked since it shrunk only her, not her clothes, and he offers her an extravagant dress from one of the dolls he ordered for her to wear instead. He also offers to "help" her change into her new dress; unsurprisingly, Sally refuses.

* EvilOldFolks: Zig-Zagged. The doll-maker shrinks people against their will, but he treats them very nicely, and mostly just seems to be lonely. Until he decides [[spoiler:to kill all his victims.]]

* FreudianExcuse: Dr. Franz's profound need for companionship stems from the fact that his wife unexpectedly left him for an acrobat.

* AffablyEvil: Dr. Franz is a kind, grandfatherly old man who never shows any true anger toward the "dolls" he's holding against their will, [[spoiler: even when he's planning to kill them and himself]]. While he does have some [[DirtyOldMan unsettling tastes]], his principal motivation for shrinking his victims is his crippling loneliness.

* NoEnding: [[spoiler:Two of the dolls get back to normal and leave saying they're calling the police, but we never see what happened to the other little people, what the police did, or if the doll maker decided to kill himself instead of living the rest of his life alone.]]

* TheOneThatGotAway: Franz's wife Emma, who left him to run away with an acrobat.

* PoliceAreUseless: A detective is following the doll maker, but never catches him doing anything. He never even gets past the NotNowKiddo subplot, even when a little girl backs up the missing character's story.
* PuppetShows: Only one starring the living dolls and a JekyllAndHyde marionette.

* PuppetShows: Only one starring the living dolls and a JekyllAndHyde puppet.

[[quoteright:305:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/014puppet_people.jpg]]

A mad dollmaker turned scientist shrinks some hapless young people and makes them his living dolls. Directed by Creator/BertIGordon, this was originally released in 1958 by Creator/AmericanInternationalPictures, in a double-feature package with the same director's ''Film/WarOfTheColossalBeast''.

* StockholmSyndrome: Possibly with the other four puppet people that Bob and Sally meet. It's a bit unclear how long they've been with him, but it seems to have kicked in by now. However, once Franz disappears, they do make attempts to contact someone else for help. Some have accepted their fate until [[spoiler: they find out Franz has planned a murder/suicide and they snap out of the Stockholm Syndrome and try to save themselves.]]

** Granted that it doesn't work because of a PlotHole, but why would Franz leave a perfectly good working telephone within reach of his captives and leave the window up? Even if the previous four people have StockholmSyndrome, Bob and Sally definitely don't and have been angry and defiant with him the entire time. Their escape attempts fail, but if they hadn't, he would've been quickly caught thanks to such blatant oversights.

* AffablyEvil: Dr. Franz is a kind, grandfatherly old man who never shows any true anger toward the "dolls" he's holding against their will, [[spoiler: even when he's planning to kill them and himself]]. He does have some [[DirtyOldMan unsettling tastes]], but his chief motivation for shrinking his victims is his crippling loneliness.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/014puppet_people.jpg]]

A mad doll-maker turned scientist shrinks some hapless young people and makes them his living dolls. Directed by Creator/BertIGordon, this was originally released in 1958 by Creator/AmericanInternationalPictures in a double-feature package with ''Film/WarOfTheColossalBeast'' by the same director.

Given the ''Podcast/RiffTrax'' treatment in 2014. Also, fun fact: This film played a role in the Watergate scandal, as Alfred Baldwin, a spotter for the team of burglars, got distracted watching it and failed to notice the police arriving.

* EvilOldFolks: Zig-Zagged. The doll-maker shinks people against their will, but he treats them very nicely, and mostly just seems to be lonely. Until he decides [[spoiler:to KillEmAll.]]

* MoodWhiplash: [[spoiler: Before he enacts his murder-suicide plan, Franz takes his dolls to the theater and forces Sally to participate in his marionette show by having her interact with a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde puppet (she plays along so that one of the other dolls can drug Franz's coffee). For no particular reason, Bob charges onto the stage and destroys the puppet of Dr. Jekyll in a fit of rage. While this ''does'' create a distraction that allows the rest of the dolls to flee before Sally and Bob do the same, there's no reason why they couldn't have kept humoring Franz until the drug took effect.]]