PUPPET MASTER: THE LEGACY (2003)
Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 73 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: Robert Talbot
Cast: Jacob Witkin, Ian Abercrombie, Guy Rolfe, Kate Orsini, Greg Sestero, William Hickey, Richard Lynch
The eighth entry in Full Moon's Puppet Master franchise, Puppet Master: The Legacy (2003), is sort of a cliffs notes version of the entire series up to that point, with stock-footage pulled straight from from the preceding seven Puppet Master movies with a new wrap-a-round story tagged-on. The term "cash grab" might immediately spring to mind when you ponder this, and honestly you wouldn't be wrong, this is a fairly crass and unnecessary entry, following some cash-strapped years in the early 2000's.
The new wrap around story features actor Jacob Witkin (Matinee) as the elderly Peter Hertz, the kid saved from the Nazi's by Toulon in Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991), he's apparently living at Bodega Bay, and is the new puppet master, tasked with guarding Toulon's re-animation secrets and his beloved puppets. He's working away in his studio with the surviving puppets, we see Blade, Pinhead, Jester, Tunneler, and Six-Shooter, when a female mercenary/assassin (Kate Orsini, Gargoyle) shows up looking for Toulon's secrets. What transpires is Hertz being tortured by the assassin, forced to recall the events of all the Puppet Master films in chronological order with the assistance of an audio recording of Andre Toulon (Guy Rolfe), flashing back to scenes from the previous films in the series, weaving a chronological web of puppet master mayhem.
The warp-a-round story, which is only about thirty-minutes of new footage, is rather cheesy and not particularly well-acted, but what's hard to knock about this film is how much fun it is as a greatest hits/best of video compilation of the Puppet Master films, using a lot of the best parts from each of the earlier entries, with PM3 - the best of the series - having the most screen time. It's an interesting watch to see the progression/regression of the puppeteering and how much the pint-sized terrors shined with the articulation provided by David Allen (Robot Jox) and how little they move in the future installments after his death. Notably I do not think any of the puppets in the wrap-a-round story move other than to pivot their heads and limbs a little bit.
Full Moon impresario Charles Band directed this money grab under the pseudonym Robert Talbot, it does vaguely try to tie up some of the loose-ends and various strange plot points of earlier entries, but in my opinion it only muddles up the mythology even more. While Hertz argues that Toulon and his puppets were a force of good, the assassin argues the opposite, pointing out the "innocent" victims through the years. Eventually she reveals her true purpose, turns out she's not there to steal the formula for profit after all, it's something else, and... it's a stinker, with an awful finale that gobsmacked me... that's it, are you serious!?!
What I do like about this entry is that we get to revisit the classic films, this is a sort of best of/greatest hits package in a way, we see the story unfold in chronological order, which can also be a bit of a hodge-podge watch, too. It is a bit jarring seeing Toulon in all his incarnations, and in the reverse order you saw them first. In just seventy-three minutes have young Toulon played by Greg Sestero (The Room), middle-aged (Guy Rolfe, Mr. Sardonicus) and the elderly (William Hickey, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation) and even the resurrected and completely bandaged Toulon from Puppet Master 2 (1991), played by Steve Welles. Seeing it in the ascending order certainly gives a more sinister arc to the character.
This is an interesting best of assembly, but the new wrap-a-round and an admirable attempt to fix the plot holes and the ongoing continuity issues, but this thing goes from flashbacks to flashbacks within flashbacks - and it's sort of mind melting and not in a good way, the movie gets lost within itself at a certain point.
Special Features:
- The First Puppet Master Featurette: No Strings Attached!
- Full Moon Trailers
Puppet Master: The Legacy (2003) is for serious Puppet Master completest only, the franchise continuity has always been a head-scratcher, and this is a half-hearted and cheap attempt to address a few of the idiosyncrasies, but it fails in doing so. If you're just looking to relive the first seven films in a brief seventy-three minute best of watch then this might be worth a watch, for all others you have to be a die-hard fan to need this one in your collection, but we horror fans are a loyal bunch, so if you're a fan and can pick up up on the cheap you probably will.
