by ·Comments Off on Netherworld (1992, David Schmoeller)

Zombie conspiracy movie with lots of birds and boobs, from the director of O.G. Puppet Master, this videotape was very popular with some teens I could mention who were stuck at their great aunt’s house. The wannabe-Phantasm flying stone hand never looked extremely cool, and holds up even worse in HD, but the birdies have never looked better. The stone hand facehugs a would-be rapist using its barbwire grapples and maybe transforms the guy into a bird, and we’re off.

These red-crested cardinals and a cockatoo get carted into the background of every room/scene:

Verbose young man Corey arrives at his late dad’s estate and meets the staff, including lawyer Robert Burr (a doctor in Return to Salem’s Lot), Anjanette Comer who runs the place (she starred in The Baby with Arletty from Messiah of Evil), and her hot young horsegirl daughter who is constantly hitting on Corey (naming her “Diane Palmer” was probably supposed to spark some connections I didn’t catch at the time). The horsegirl says to stay away from the feather-eared bird people at the brothel next door, but her mom is one of them. Corey got a note from his late dad saying someone named Dolores can help resurrect him, and guess where Dolores hangs out.

The director appears onscreen, at left, as if to say “don’t take any of this too seriously”:

Corey keeps acting confident as he blunders around, way over his head, risking his ass to save the father he never met. He gets it on with his dad’s girlfriend while guest star Edgar Winter blows a sax solo. Anjanette maybe tries to kill him, but gets blinded by Dolores. The alliances are confusing… and the meaning of the stone hand… lotta good birds though. Zombie Dad gets almost-resurrected, intending to inhabit his son’s body, but Corey fights back at the last minute and dad turns into a zombie muppet eclectus.

by ·Comments Off on Puppet Master 8: The Legacy (2003, Charles Band)

There’s a new Puppet Master movie out this year, so I am falling behind – decided to watch the last of the “classic” series. It’s the Puppet Master clip show, featuring scenes from the other movies in roughly chronological order, with a framing story of an anti-Toulon woman reading a giant book, presumably the official novelization of Puppet Masters 1-7, then trying to get the secret of eternal puppet life out of some vaguely Toulon-looking guy (Jacob Witkin of the Evil Bong trilogy). She’s an assassin, who conveniently claims to have killed the survivors of previous movies, so no more sequels I guess.

We start with the Greg Sestero movie, go through the nazi era to parts one and two, then the laser tag sequels. With all these craptastic movies crammed into one hour, the few decent performances stand out: Guy Rolfe, and surprisingly Cameron, the asshole computer rival in part four. I thought the flashbacks would be a “best of Puppet Master,” so a montage of murder scenes, but the writer/directors (ashamed, working under pseudonyms) assume we watch these movies because we care about the fleshed-out history of original puppetmaster Andre Toulon, so it’s all the mythology stuff (with some good murders mixed in). As a result, this is probably the best Puppet Master movie – but if you’re some kind of idiot who watched the previous seven of these, then there’s no need for it, unless we’re gonna need all this recapping in order to follow Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys.

by ·Comments Off on Dollman vs. Demonic Toys (1993, Charles Band)

“Full Moon Entertainment Presents”

1993 was the year of Puppet Master 4, Remote (IMDB: “my best advice is to skip it”), Mandroid (from the writer of Dr. Moreau’s House of Pain), Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight (sequel to Mandroid), Arcade (with Seth Green, “a virtual reality game begins taking over the minds of teenagers”), dinosaur flick Prehysteria, Robot Wars (Robot Jox sequel starring Barbara Crampton) and Subspecies 2.

Dollman and the nurse… can you tell how tiny they are?

Another guy is breaking into the toy warehouse from Demonic Toys? New security guard (Phil Fondacaro, the troll in Troll) doesn’t notice this guy just wandering in and dying on the floor, then the toys are back in town – plus an army guy and minus the teddy bear I think, taking the Puppet Master approach of adding and removing evil toys on a whim.

I like the new PTSD-GI-Joe doll:

Weirdly power-hungry dwarf security guard:

Elsewhere, tiny Dollman finds a hot tiny girl who “got shrunk by aliens” – I don’t remember this happening. Turns out this is a crossover between Dollman, Demonic Toys, and something called Bad Channels (“in space, no one is safe from rock ‘n’ roll”). How do I know? Because Dollman vs. Demonic Toys – only a one-hour movie – spends as much time as possible running flashbacks from its three predecessors.

Can Dollman, shrunken Nurse Jude and Demonic Toys survivor Tracy Scoggins keep the Toys from taking over? Yes, easily. Dollman shoots them with his little gun and they explode. Sorry for the total lack of suspense. Before that, the Toys are warping prostitutes into another dimension in order to summon their master (the Puppet Master?), and the final showdown involves the Baby toy trying to rape the shrunken nurse. Directed by madman Charles Band himself and written by Tarantino friend Craig Hamann, both of whom should stay away from children.