Hump Day Posters: Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983)

 

Full Moon Friday Night # 6

A New Year is here and Full Moon Friday Night is back again and so are those pesky puppets. This outing features perhaps the most epic of the Puppet Master films.

Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991)

Director: David DeCoteau
Writers: Charles Band (original idea), C. Courtney Joyner (screenplay)
Stars: Guy Rolfe, Richard Lynch, Ian Abercrombie, Sarah Douglas, Aron Eisenberg, Walter Gotell

Berlin, 1941. World War II is raging across Europe. In a Nazi lab, Dr. Hess is forced by Gestapo Major Kraus to cook up a serum to make Nazi Zombies! But Hess can’t get it right. The reanimated bodies go bat shit crazy. Elsewhere, in a small theater André Toulon is running a puppet show for kids. One that happens to poke fun at Hitler. Maybe not a good idea in the middle of freaking Berlin dude. Among the crowd of children and their parents watching the show is Lt. Erich Stein, who takes photos of the whole thing. After the show Stein sneaks backstage and spies Toulon and his wife injecting the puppets with the life giving formula. Being a bit of a weasel he immediately tells his superiors. Hess hear’s about Toulon’s serum and knows it’s what he needs to complete his Nazi Zombie project.

André Toulon Time Lord

Kraus and Hess show up at Toulon’s the next day. Things go south fast. The Nazi’s grab the puppets and the formula, with Toulon’s wife Elsa getting shot in the process. Kraus shoots the wounded Elsa dead after she spits on him. Toulon is hauled off by two soldiers along with the puppets to be taken in for questioning. En route Pinhead and Tunneler make sort work of the dumb asses guarding Toulon, allowing him to make a hasty escape. Setting up a base in a bombed out building the Puppet Master begins plotting his revenge on the Nazis. 

First things first. In the original Puppet Master, Toulon commits suicide on March 15, 1939 in Bodega Bay, California. So how the holy hell is he in Berlin in 1941? Is he a Time Lord or from the Zeist? That aside this is the best in the series. It’s got a boat load of good actors. A cool premise. I mean Puppets vs. Nazis. What’s not to love? It also marks the first apprance of one of the coolest of the puppets, Six-Shooter. Plus we get origins for Blade and Leech Woman. Filmed on the old Universal sets, lending it the feel of the old classic monsters’ films. Something the Full Moon films have always felt like to me. Later day Universal monster films. It’s fun, pulpy entertainment.    

Full Moon Friday Night # 5

Hey! It’s back again! What was I saying about doing these regularly? This week we’re back to the series that not only started Full Moon, but started an insane crush.

Puppet Master II (1990)

Director: David Allen
Writers: Charles Band (story), David Pabian (screenplay)
Stars: Elizabeth Maclellan, Collin Bernsen, Steve Welles, Charlie Spradling, Nita Talbot

In a cemetery behind the Bodega Bay Inn, the puppets from the first film dig up the corpse of André Toulon. They then use a potion on their master, bringing him back to moldy life. Months later, a team of parapsychologists are sent to the hotel to investigate the bizarre murder of Megan Gallagher from the first film. Alex Whitaker, also from the original is suspected of killing her and has been locked up in an asylum. Raving on about the strange antics going on at the Bodega Bay Inn. Soon members of the team start seeing weird shit. The new owner of the inn shows up, looking like an Invisible Man cospayer. Or perhaps it’s Benjamin Knight from Mandroid! Before long the puppets start picking off the team one by one. Who will survive and who’ll get naked?

Puppet Master II is my favorite of the franchise. Granted I haven’t seen all of them, but of the ones I have, PM II is the best in my humble opinion. You have David Allen doing a solid job directing. A better main villain then the first feature film. It’s a shame he never got to do more. Allen passed away in 1999. The PM films started to have a Universal feel to them starting here. And with Toulon looking like the Invisible Man only adds to that feeling. We also get a brand new puppet this go around, Torch. One of the most bad ass members of the puppet crew. He even gets to play human torch with a bratty little kid!

PM II was the film where I first laid eyes on the amazing Charlie Spradling. I was hooked instantly. It was love at first sight. And I tracked down other films with the lovely Charlie. Which in the pre-internet era was a lot of fucking hard work and dumb luck. Kids with their IMDB these days. Anyway, I was the only one who became infatuated with Charlie Spradling. She quickly became a fan favorite at Full Moon. Becoming a fixture of Full Moon’s Video Zone.

If you want some classic Full Moon puppet action, with ample nudity and gore, Puppet Master II has you covered. Check it out! 

Hump Day Posters: Robot Jox (1990)

Full Moon Friday Night # 4

Back again for our fourth installment of Full Moon madness! I’d like to do these more regularly, but stuff always seems to come up. Anyway, for this installment we have a newer Full Moon flick. I found this sucker on one of those Wal-mart five dollar bin horror collections. Will that be this film’s budget as well?

Zombies Vs. Strippers (2012)

Director: Alex Nicolaou
Writers: Nick Francomano, Alex Nicolaou
Staring: Circus-Szalewski, Eve Mauro, Victoria Levine

The story here is fairly simple. I mean it’s a film about strippers and zombies. We’re not getting Finnegans Wake here. In a city overrun by the living dead, a small cheap-ass strip club is the last hold out of the living. Not that they even know it at first. The Tough Titty is about to go under. The owner gets the staff together for one last night before the joint closes. On this final night of stripping and partying a few patrons show up acting weird. By weird, I mean they try to eat the strippers and other patrons. And not in the good way. After kicking the dead out of the club some strippers, staffers and remaining patrons try to hold out against a city full of zombies. Or as many as the budget will allow.

There’s some boobies. There’s some zombies. Shit happens. The end. At a whopping 75 minutes Zombies Vs. Strippers never really wears out it’s welcome. There’s no Night of The Living Dead looking at social issues here. Z vs. S is dumb fun. Mostly dumb. The characters are what you’d expect. There’s the innocent stripper. The bitchy one. The tough talking, afro having Coffy wannabe. And the sleazeball owner. We’re meant to root for them, but they all come across as pricks. So we’re left rooting for the zombies. Which is fine. I root for Jason to kill those horny 30 year old teens all the time. 

Aside from the characters being a bit annoying Zombies Vs. Strippers was a fine time to pass 75 minutes. It’s not something I could see myself watching a lot, or even again. But the effects are nice and there’s lots of hot naked women. If you like that thing. I do. Z Vs. S shows that the Band dream factory still has it.  

Full Moon Friday Night # 2

This week’s Full Moon offering has a surprising lack of puppets or little monsters. But it is the first in another series. Witchouse or Witch House or Which House? What ever floats your boat.

Witchouse (1999) 

Directed by David DeCoteau (as Jack Reed)

Written by Matthe Jason Walsh   

Starring Matt Raftery, Monica Serene Garnich, Ariauna Albright, Brooke Mueller, Ashley McKinney, Dave Oren Ward, Dane Northcutt

It’s May Day in the town of Dunwich, Romania. I mean Massachusetts! How could I have made that mistake. And we’re really going with May Day here as our horror movie holiday? We must be running out. Anyways, Goth babe Elizabeth invites a bunch of her “friends” to a special May Day party. The way her “buds” talk about her I can only assume they were the kind that picked on her endlessly. But considering why Liz has them there, it makes sense. Good old Liz is a descendant of a witch named Lilith who was burned at the stake on the day three hundred years ago. Elizabeth hopes to resurrect her dead evil ancestor by sacrificing her guests. Also, fun party games!  

Going in I didn’t know this was a David DeCoteau film. Sneaky disguising your name as Jack Reed sir. Or else I’d been expecting shirtless dudes in their underwear. Not surprisingly there’s a shirtless dude in his underwear, though not a whole ton as you’d expect. One of said dudes in this film would later be a Power Ranger! So, bonus points there.

The location they used for the house was cool looking. Very unique. At the same time it also screamed: Hey! We’re filming this in Romania! It’s not Massachusetts. Still as I said, it had a cool look. There’s a bit of stock footage thrown in for flashback scene. It looks to have been taken from Full Moon’s Dark Angel film.

The story is cliche as all hell. They did everything but have a cat jump out. BUT you know, I dug it. The film has a warm, comfortable feel too it. For a film with people getting killed by a demonic witch. But yeah, I enjoyed it. The acting and story aren’t going to win any awards, but the film was fun, funny at times and moved at a good pace. I was never bored. At times it felt like a Night of The Demons film. Not a bad thing if you ask me.

Next week...

Full Moon Friday Night # 1

Puppet Master (1989)

Directed by David Schmoeller

Written by Kenneth J. Hall and David Schmoeller

Starring Paul Le Mat, William Hickey, Irene Miracle, Jimmie F. Skaggs, Robin Frates
Matt Roe and Kathryn O'Reilly

Peeping Blade

Welcome to the start of a new semi-regular feature around here. Maybe. Depending on how lazy I’m feeling. With Full Moon Friday Night, I intend to watch a film from Charles Band’s Full Moon Features every week or so and post a review of it Friday. And perhaps some Empire stuff as well. As I said, not sure if it will be every Friday, depends on my schedule and shit.

In 1983 Charles Band formed Empire International Pictures. The company produced a plethora of low-budget horror, Sci-Fi and fantasy films including Trancers, The Dungeonmaster, Re-Animator, From Beyond, Dolls, TerrorVision, Troll, and Ghoulies. Eventually financial problems caught up with Empire. Which led to Bankruptcy. After Empire’s collapse, Band formed Full Moon Productions. This time he was partnered with Paramount Pictures and Pioneer Home Entertainment for direct-to-video releasing on VHS and Laserdisc for all Full Moon’s releases. Instead of making films for a theatrical release. Band would make low budget, theatrical looking movies for the growing home video market. All this leads us to today’s film. Full Moon’s first production. Puppet Master. Because If I’m going to start somewhere, might as well start at the beginning.

Is that a pube on the print? 

In Bodega Bay, California 1939, old dude puppet maker André Toulon (William Hickey) is on the run from some Nazi guys and hiding out at the Bodega Bay Inn. He’s hanging out with some living puppets. Jester, Blade and Shredder Khan! With the Nazi’s closing in, Toulon hides the puppets and plays a quick game of Russian roulette. Spoilers he loses.

It's the Miracle

Cut to the present day. 2017? Oh, 1989. Anyway. Four psychic friends, Alex Whitaker, Dana Hadley, Frank Forrester and Carissa Stamford are summoned to the Bodega Bay Inn via psychic text message by Neil Gallagher. Carissa can touch an object and know it’s history. Frank has the power of sleazy pony tail. Dana is a witch and part time bitch. Or is that the other way round? And Alex has an amazing helmet of hair. Plus he get premonitions in his dreams. Gallagher is an friend of theirs who was searching for Toulon’s secrets. The four assume he’s found them. But when they arrive at Inn Neil’s wife Megan tells them he’s dead.

The password is fidelio

The group settle in for the night. Deciding to stay and figure out what the hell is happening. But they’re not the only one’s there. Some of Toulon’s puppets are scurrying about the inn, spying on the new guests. Who’s controlling them? What happened to Neil? And can Alex’s hair get anymore magnificent?

The one that started it all! It was a big hit for Full Moon. Spawning a entire series of puppet films, not to mention inspiring some of Full Moon’s other properties. I’m looking at you Demonic Toys.

Majestic

Puppet Master all these years later is still a blast. Although it spends most of it’s time focused on the psychics and Neil, making the puppets sort of secondary. It’s still an enjoyable viewing experience. The film always moves along at a good clip, even if the puppets aren’t on screen.

The score by Richard Band reminiscent of his Empire work, a good thing! I’ve had the Puppet Master theme in my head for years. When ever I think of the franchise or Full Moon in general that theme pops into my head.

Papers please

There’s nothing like some good old Stop motion. The late David Allen created the stop motion effects for the puppets. Each of the puppets feels alive. And each feels like it has a personality. When the puppets aren’t stop motion they’re still pretty damn good.

Oooo. Sprechen Sie sexy...

That brings me to the characters. Except for Dana, played by the awesome Irene Miracle, no of them really stand out. She has a fun little scene involving fortune telling with Barbara Crampton in a cameo. Dana is a cynical witch and her character is the most fun through out the film. Alex is your typical hero type. Really not much going on there, except for that awesome hair. Frank is sleazy and that’s about it. Carissa is the hot librarian type. Okay, I like Carissa too, for um… Different reasons.

Big hands Big um...

If you want to jump into the huge lake that is the Puppet Master franchise, this is the place to start. Not the best of the series. And the puppets aren’t as much of a presence here. But it’s where it began and has it’s moments.  

Hump Day Posters: The Dungeonmaster (1984)

Hump Day Posters: Empire Pictures

Hump Day Posters: Re-Animator (1985)