PUPPET MASTER: THE LEGACY (2003) (Blu-ray Review)

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.

FIREWALKER (1986)

FIREWALKER (1986) 

Label: Olive Films
Region Code: A
Rating: PG 
Duration: 104 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 
Director: J. Lee Thompson
Cast: Chuck Norris, Lou Gossett, John Rhys-Davies, Melody Anderson, Ian Abercrombie, Will Sampson, Sonny Landham, Richard Lee-Sung

Get out your cracker of choice because Cannon Films is bringing the cheese tonight with this action-adventure knock-off from '86 starring '80s ass-kicker Chuck Norris (The Octagon) and Lou Gossett Jr (Enemy Mine) as a pair of soldiers of fortune with to little to show for their efforts. It all begins with a fun desert dunes chase sequence with buggies and a squadron of ATV pursuing our adventurers through desert, they're captured by a Chinese General (Richard Lee-Sung) and left to die in the heat of the sun with an ironic twist involving a bottle of Perrier. If course they escape and head straight to their favorite watering hole where they encounter a young woman named Patricia (Flash Gordon) who is seeking brave men who are not too smart to aid her on a quest for gold... Max and Leo certainly fit that description. Together the trio head to the mountains of Central America in search of an ancient Aztec-Mayan treasure, along the way enlist the aid of Native American shaman named Tall Eagle (Will Sampson, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and a mercenary named Corky (John Rhys-Davies, Raiders of the Lost Ark) in addition to a bar fly named Boggs (Ian Abercrombie, Army of Darkness). All the while they must fend off attacks orchestrated an evil shaman named El Coyote (Sonny Landham, Predator) who protects the treasure and hopes to use the trio's quest for the gold to help him obtain the sacred and supernatural powers of his own ancient ancestors.

Coming into this you had best prepare yourself for some super-dumb fun with an emphasis on dumb and only a smattering of the promised fun. Quite an obvious cash-in on the very popular action-adventure movies of the time this one wears its influence openly but also dumbs down the material to the point of absolute ridiculousness, with loads of cheap thrills and a lot of unintentional hilarity. Along the way I would forget how it came to be these characters came into each new harrowing situation or how they escaped from the previous one, the script has very little meat on the bone and the connective tissue is almost non-existent, they just go from one set piece to the next with very little rhyme or reason. 

There's a running joke of Norris' character being an awful marksman that is just beaten to death throughout the movie, but then we do get some enjoyable foot-to-face fight sequences with the requisite slow-motion camera work, the best being a sequence of Norris single-handedly decimating an bar room full of troublemakers that was particularly enjoyable. While Norris was undoubtedly a master with his hands and feet he never did quite master the art humor, comedy was the one foe he could never defeat, with that said I did enjoy the buddy aspect of the film between Norris and Gossett, even if the dialogue, puns and jokes were lame, but there's something enjoyable about it, trashy fun. On top that we have a few of the set-pieces including a temple (perhaps a Temple of Doom) in Central America offering some fun adventuring complete with an altar of sacrifice and a boiling underground lake.

Directed J. Lee Thompson who apparently fell on hard times in the '80s, the director helmed the original Cape Fear (1962) in addition to The White Buffalo (1977), before going onto direct the slasher classic Happy Birthday to Me (1981) and then onto a string of Golan-Globus produced trash cinema in his waning years, many starring Charles Bronson. While the man was no Orson Welles but he was certainly capable of more noted endeavors. That his career descended into adventurer clones like this and King Solomon's Mines (1985) probably was not a career choice, such is the life of a director for hire.  

Audio/Video: Firewalker arrives on Blu-ray from Olive Films with a 1080p HD transfer framed in the (1.85:1) aspect ratio looking a little thick at times with heavy grain but also offering some nice depth and clarity from time to time with good color reproduction and accurate skin tones, black levels are pretty decent, too. The English language DTS-HD MA 2.0 is pretty solid with no snap, crackle or pops to distract. Dialogue, musical score and sound effects are nicely balanced and cleanly reproduced, there are no subtitles are provided and there are no extras to be found anywhere on the disc. 

As one of the more uninspired action-adventurer knock-offs of the '80s Firewalker makes Cannon Films' King Solomon's Mines (1985) and the sequel Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1987) seems absolutely epic by comparison, but if you're a trash cinema connoisseur there's a lot to love about this cheese-fest, this is goofy '80s b-movie fun starring ass-kicker Chuck Norris. 

Blu-ray Review: PUPPET MASTER III: TOULON'S REVENGE (1991)

PUPPET MASTER III: TOULON'S REVENGE (1991)

Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 86 Minutes
Video: 16x9 Widescreen (1.85:1)
Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1
Director: David DeCoteau
Cast: Guy Rolfe, Ian Abercrombie, Sarah Douglas, Walter Gotel, Kristopher Logan, Matthew Faison, Aaron Eisenberg, Richard Lynch
Tagline: When good puppets go bad.

Synopsis: After learning that Andre Toulon's puppets have no strings and seem to have a life of their own, Dr. Hess, a WWII Gestapo henchman, sends his officers to kidnap them. During the melee, Toulon's wife Elsa is killed, but the puppets fight back and escape with their leader. Toulon creates a new puppet, Six Shooter, models Blade after a pasty-faced Nazi and uses Elsa's essence to create Leech Woman. The army is ready. Body part by body part, revenge will be theirs…

Flm: The third installment of the Puppet Master franchise is a period-piece, a prequel taking place three years after the start of Puppet Master ...huh? Whatever. The year is 1941 in Berlin during WW2. Dr. Hess (Ian Abercrombie, Army of Darkness) is a Nazi scientist in the service of the Third Reich. He's been tasked to create a serum that will create an army of undead zombie soldiers. He's had a modicum of success but the serum is too unstable and in an early scene we see a corpse jump off the operating table Re-Animator style and wreak havoc. Hess is overseen my Major Kraus (Richard Lynch, Bad Dreams) from the Gestapo. Kraus's driver Lt. Stein (Kristopher Logan, The Rocketeer) is an amateur puppeteer and attends a puppet show for children presented by Andre Toulon and his wife Elsa (Sarah Douglass, Superman 2). During the puppet show a marionette of Adolf Hitler is fired upon by a new puppet called Six Shooter, modeled after the American gunslingers. He's got six arms and six guns, it's a great character design and he has a great Jack Nicholson laugh that I just love. The Lt. who sounds a lot like Marvin the Martian sneaks around after the show and witness the puppets being fed their serum by Toulon and that they seem to be alive, unassisted by strings. When he reports this to Krauss and Hess the next day Kraus immediately takes an SS squad to Toulon's residence to arrest the puppeteer for treasonous acts. Hess convinces Kraus that he must speak with Toulon to gain his secrets of reanimation. Kraus agrees but then kills Toulon's wife Elsa after she spits in his face in defiance. As Toulon is being transported away the two soldiers guarding him are killed by Tunneler and Pinhead allowing him to escape and plot his revenge. It's a great shot when Tunneler drills his way through the back of the driver's seat and through his chest, quite bloody. 

This film has a lot going for it. Setting it during WW2 in Berlin is a good choice and it's a great backdrop for the film with some excellent sets and dressings. The acting is superb from the key players. Richard Lynch (Bad Dreams, Laid to Rest) as the despicable Major Kraus is inspired, he's a wicked villain. Ian Abercrombie as the Nazi scientist Hess is also great casting. You get the feeling he's being forced into working for the Reich and he seems genuinely amazed by the work of Toulon, in fact, he redeems himself towards the end of the film. You may recall Abercrombie as Mr. Pitt, Elaine's boss from the TV 's Seinfeld. Then there is Guy Rolfe (Dolls, Mr. Sardonicus) as Andre Toulon, easily the best Toulon I've seen so far in the series, no disrespect to the venerable and beloved William Hickey from the first entry. Also noteworthy is the appearance of Walter Gotell as the Nazi General Mueller who played "General Gogol" in several 007 entries, his character loves frequenting Nazi whores and his scene in a tub being bathed by topless Nazi tramps is just wonderful. 

There's very little I did not enjoy here. The setting, the acting, the special effects - all great stuff. Highlight for me include the origins of Blade and Ms. Leech and the rest of the puppets, great stuff. Let's not forget the awesome introduction of Six Shooter and that we find out why the Nazi's are pursuing Toulon at the start of the first film. A goof of sorts would be the inclusion of Jester in the film whom we saw Toulon create in the first film which the ending of this entry more or less sets up.

Blu-ray: While previous Puppet Master III VHS and DVD editions did not suffer quite as much as earlier Puppet Master II releases they were not great either; cropped images that were dark, murky and standard-definition with artifacting. Much like the new Puppet Master II Blu-ray the film is presented in it's original anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) aspect ratio with an MPEG-4 encoded image transferred from the original negative and remastered in high-definition with all new color timing and color correction. The results are revealing, like seeing the film for the first time. I've seen this film several times in it's many VHS and DVD incarnations and it's always been the same fullframe standard-definition transfer, cropped, soft, murky and lacking any fine detail. What we get with this Blu-ray release is a pleasingly crisp anamorphic presentation with a pleasant amount of natural grain left intact, with that though we also get a fair amount of digital noise but overall this is quite wonderful stomps previous SD transfers with vivid saturated colors, natural skin tones, decent black an acceptable amount of fine detail.

On the audio front we get a newly created 5.1 sound surround mix but it's Dolby Digital and not lossless audio. That said while it's not overly dynamic it is not lamented by the same compression issues and the dialogue, score and effects sound quite good. Still the lack of a lossless audio option is a disappointing oversight.

Some of the bonus content is mirrored from the Puppet Master II Blu-ray beginning with the  Introduction (2:35) from creator Charles Band filmed on the set of the forthcoming Puppet Master 10 in which the  auteur discusses the difficulty getting the early Full Moon films on Blu-ray and what's coming next in 1080p. There's the same Killer Puppet Montage (1:52),  a Rare Puppet Master Toy Promo (1:30) and same eight Full Moon trailers in HD widescreen. New content(sorta) is a vintage episode of Full Moon's video magazine VideoZone.

The center-piece of the bonus features is a newly recorded audio commentary with director David Decoteau and writer C. Courtney Joyner that's informative and entertaining - these guys are movie fiends and happily recollect their time on the Universal back lot and the classic film that were also brought to life there, it makes for some good listening. A lot of the commentary is scene specific and follows what's transpiring onscreen but they also veer off with fun production anecdotes, DeCoteau talks a bit about arguing with Charlie Band over the opening scene being a bit too graphic, remembering that Band is actually a bit squeamish, at least back in the day. The two also offer fond remembrances of Lynch, Abercrombie, Rolf, and Gotel all of whom have since shuffled off this mortal coil. They also discuss Lynch not being the first choice of actor to portray Kraus, originally the part was intended for Ralph Bates (Taste the Blood of Dracula)  but he died before production. They also discuss Lynch disfigurement which occurred during a 'Nam protest in Central Park during a "controlled" burn with rubbing alcohol but it got out of control, they also dismiss that the incident had stemmed from a drug-induced state which is what I had always been told. It's a good commentary and really adds to the enjoyment of the film, good stuff. 

Special Features: 

- Brand new Introduction by Puppet Master creator Charles Band (2:35)
- Brand new 2012 Audio Commentary by writer C. Courtney Joyner director David DeCoteau
- VideoZone (25:30) 14x3 
- Killer Puppet Master Montage (1:52) 4x3
-Rare Puppet Master Toy Promo (1:30) 4x3
-HD Full Moon trailers:
Puppet Master (1:38) 16x9
Castle Freak 2:15) 16x9
Zombies vs Strippers (1:19) 16x9
Demonic Toys 2 (1:15) 16x9
Evil Bong 3 (1:00) 16x9
Gingerdead Man 3 (1:02) 16x9
Killjoy's Revenge (1:39) 16x9
Puppet Master: Axis of Evil (2:06) 16x9 

Verdict: Of the the first three installments of the Puppet Master series Toulon's Revenge inches out Puppet Master as my favorite. The acting is just really superb from a seasoned cast. Guy Rolf's portrayal of Toulon is the best of the bunch, I cannot imagine anyone else capturing the essence of Andre Toulon the way he did here. Despite the films modest budget the WW2 era sets are well rendered and shooting on Universal's back lot didn't hurt either, the film definitely has a sense of time and place. The stop-motion effects are really good though I think they may have been a bit better in Puppet Master II which I would attribute to special effects wizard David Allen directing that film. Full Moon's new remastered high-definition transfer is great stuff, it's amazing to see this film in widescreen for the first and I am definitely looking forward to more Puppet Master entries as well as Stuart Gordon's Castle Freak and The Pit and the Pendulum in 1080p widescreen. 
4 Outta 5