Without a doubt, Puppet Master was Full Moon's bread and butter series. The first one was released in 1989, amid the wave of "killer doll" movies that appeared in the wake of Chucky. You'd think that the 17,000th movie about stalking little toys would have been been boring and...well, bad. But lo and behold, it was pretty frickin' awesome. Enough that the people back in the late '80s renting every VHS horror tape that they could find responded to it in a big way. Charles Band, the head honcho at Full Moon, took notice. As such, it wasn't long until more Puppet Master movies started showing up in the video store. And more. And more, until the thing was an entire damn FRANCHISE just as much as the Freddys, Jasons and Michaels of the world could boast. I would never, ever claim that this is the best movie series on the planet or anything, but I will say this: for a time, a very BRIEF time back when I was in high school, this was my favorite horror franchise. It didn't take long for it to be supplanted, but it was fun while it lasted.
The basics go like this: A group of characters appear at a location. Most of the time, it's this fictional hotel called the Bodega Bay Inn, which also just so happens to be the site of World War II-era puppeteer Andre Toulon's experiments. This guy's talent: living dolls, which he creates by extracting human souls and implanting them into the marionettes. Oh, and said puppets are really cool and have even cooler weapons. People start getting picked off by the puppets, there's some sort of ancient tragic romance storyline going on (more on that later), and we wind up with our big showdown. Unlike most other horror films, though, the showdown typically doesn't involve the puppets. There are other main villains at work here, and most of the time, they're overtly cartoonish. Which just helps make them even more memorable. I forgot 95% of the last 10 action blockbusters I saw in cinemas; I don't forget these cheesy movies from the '90s.
With that, let's start looking at some of the films themselves. Which, I know, is what all seven of you were waiting for.
Now, I've already inducted the original movie into the IHR way back when that was a thing. But I'll talk about it briefly again. This movie introduces us to the back story of Andre Toulon (the AFOREMENTIONED WWII titular "Puppet Master" himself), putting the final touches on his last creation before Nazi spies rush the Bodega Bay Inn and kill him. But not before he hides the puppets. The action then switches to modern times. All of our characters are psychics, and they all know each other, and they're drawn to the Inn for one reason or another. What's even more interesting is that most of these characters are detestable pricks. Not in the Rob Zombie way, but in an even-keeled kind of way, if that even makes sense. But the real stars of the first movie - and in everything that came after - were the puppets themselves.
There was Tunneler, a soldier who drills his victims to death; there was Leech Woman, a truly disgusting creation who vomits bloodsuckers on people; there was Pinhead - nope, not Doug Bradley - but a strongman who strangled and beat on unfortunate saps until they perish; there was Jester, kind of the harmless emotional cheerleader of the group; and then there was BLADE, the most badass badass of them all. Knife for one arm, hook for another, this guy was essentially my hero back in high school. Looks-wise, attitude-wise, he's just awesome, and he already steals the first movie. That's the thing about that original movie - the kills were just AWESOME. For such a low-budget a movie, this stuff was creative, inventive and memorable, utilizing all those abilities listed above to varied perfection.
So yeah, the first movie did huge with the video crowd. Puppet Master II did almost as well, telling a much more personalized and Frankenstein-esque story about Andre Toulon himself coming back to life. Resurrected by the life-saving serum that was introduced in the first movie (seriously, watch the movies for yourself if you want details about this stuff), Toulon walks among us, and he wants to reincarnate the spirit of his lost love. Fortunately, he has an opportunity in the researchers who invade the inn like the marks that they are. It's kind of a black sheep in the series considering what comes after, but it's pretty damn effective with some amazing stop-motion photography work by director David Allen. It's also got Charlie Spradling as one of the sexiest victim characters in any horror movie ever. She was so popular with fans, in fact, that she went on to host pretty much all the behind-the-scenes Full Moon stuff from that point on.
Ladies and gentlemen, Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge. This was the flick that set the tone for Toulon's character for the rest of the series. Now played by the awesome Guy Rolfe, this is the 1941-set origin story. We see Toulon's bride get murdered by the Nazis, we learn the back stories of the puppets themselves, and we also get the introduction of an awesome new puppet in Six Shooter, a six-armed cowboy who shoots the dick out of unfortunate Nazi saps. I think this movie is easily the best-constructed and most emotionally satisfying of all the movies, and I also think that if there is a movie in the franchise that is due for a big-budget reboot treatment, this is the one. Imagine a movie where we actually get to know the characters who become the puppets, some fancy-schmancy handmade special effects with a modern twist and maybe, just maybe, Kiefer Sutherland as Toulon. Now's that's terrifying.
Time for the bad puppets to go good! That was the tagline when the fourth movie was released, and it delivered exactly on what it promised. Parts IV and V were shot back-to-back by director Jeff Burr, and according to the ever-accurate Wikipedia no less than SEVEN writers churned out the scripts. It gives us protagonist Rick Myers, affable dude who is now the caretaker at the Bodega Bay and just so happens to be working on artificial intelligence. We get this weird plot involving an ancient demon lord who is out to reacquire the secret to reanimation, sending his little minions called "Totems" to the Inn to do it. Which means, Puppet vs. Totem smackdown time. These two flicks definitely aren't masterpieces by any stretch of the animation, but they're decent fun, and it was interesting to see the babyface-heel dynamic get switched.
A brief break in the series followed at this point, but soon enough, the series started cranking out more stuff. 1998's Curse of the Puppet Master isn't a movie that is going to take home any Saturn awards, but it's perfectly fine for what it is. Another story of tragic romance with a twist, we have an evil scientist, his lovely daughter, and the love story between the daughter and the scientist's likable assistant. There's also a really satisfying scene at the end where evil scientist gets gutted by the puppets en masse. So that's nice. 1999 followed with Retro Puppet Master, the story of how Toulon himself found the secret to reanimation in Egypt. And this one...yeah, it ain't good, unfortunately. It DID feature newly-designed models of the puppets, but I definitely prefer the originals. A best-of reel came next with Puppet Master: The Legacy, a decent-enough highlight package if that's what you're into. From that point, the series went full SyFy. And folks, you never go full SyFy. Combining two of Full Moon's popular franchises must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys is simply awful. Bad, bad, bad, dumb, it's really bad, and it's dumb. And that is what you call constructive criticism.
Fortunately, the series came back in a big way as the '00s crossed over into the '10s. Starting with Axis of Evil, the series - still manned by Charles Band and his Full Moon Features label - has cranked out three more films in this little sub-series ever since. Again, they're not perfect. They're not artistic. But they're fun and memorable, and we've even got a brand new movie this year and another one due out next year. Stay tuned for Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, coming soon to TV screens and Blu-Ray shelves near you.
If you've been keeping score in this scatter-brained retrospective, the series now stands at an incredible THIRTEEN movies. They continue to draw horror fans in, and they continue to turn a profit. So what makes this whole thing special, and what makes people like myself keep coming back for more? From the very first movie, there has been this tangible sense of joy and exuberance to the making of the material. On the surface, yeah, they're movies about killer puppets. But everything about the execution, from making the dolls as badass as possible with cool weapons, the settings ranging from the early movies at the California seaside inn to Egypt to Nazi Germany, and the over-the-top performances by the actors...you get the sense from watching that everyone involved had a load of fun on the set. Compared to the soulless joy that comes from almost every film at the multiplex these days, watching these movies is a refreshing experience. Stripped down to its roots, though, the story of Andre Toulon and his army of reincarnated soul puppets is a powerful story about love. Cue Huey Lewis and the News song. They're also about human evil vs. inhuman evil, how they cross and intersect, and ultimately they're about YOU, the audience, taking a side between the two. Really, surprisingly deep stuff for a cheesy series about murderous marionettes.
Or maybe I'm just dumb.
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