What the fuck is with the Puppet Master films?

[Mister Six]

As a nipper I used to love terrifying myself by looking through the horror section of our local Blockbuster, which carried all the big names (Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm St etc), the infamous favourites beloved by my peers (Brain Dead, Critters, Child's Play), the weirder flicks like Basket Case and Phantasm, and the naff-looking one-offs like Shocker.

And then there was the Puppet Master films.

There were only a couple of these, and I only have vague memories of looking at pictures of a drill-headed puppet and one with little knives for hands and thinking, "Well that looks crap." Murderous puppets? And little flimsy-looking things, too - at least Chuckie was a couple of feet tall and had a scary face.

So imagine my astonishment when I discovered that so far there have been 14 Puppet Master films, including a crossover with some other franchise called Demonic Toys (which itself crossed over with something called Dollman), plus comics and a video game.

14! Who's watching these and why? How do you get that much mileage out of the series? What is it about "tiny murderous puppets" that is so compelling it's outlasted Elm St and Friday the 13th? They can't all be money laundering schemes, surely?

[Small Man Big Horse]

Weirdly despite my love for dumb slasher movies when I was a teenager I somehow missed all of these, the only one I've seen is the most recent sort of reboot which came with a script from S. Craig Zahler (Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cell Block 99) and stars Reno 911!'s Thomas Lennon. It wasn't that great either, watchable and funny in places but while the kills are fun the dialogue surrounding them was pretty weak.

[Shit Good Nose]

Welcome to the house of Charles Band.  He has a huge cult following and churns films out at a rate that makes Roger Corman look like Terrence Malick.

I was a big fan of the Puppet Master films when I was younger.  They know exactly what they are and don't try to do anything else (other than building their own little universe), but I've only seen up to 5 or 6 of the main films, and the Dollman film (Tim Thomerson's second finest hour, after Trancers, obvs).  I haven't seen any of the subsequent ones.

[C_Larence]

The first and only time I've heard of the series was in a chapter of The Disaster Artist where Greg Sestero talks about filming "Retro Puppet Master", which is apparently the seventh sequel.

They can't all be money laundering schemes, surely?

From the way Sestero talks about it, I think they can.

[another Mr. Lizard]

Our local arts/media centre screened the Zahler reboot and asked me to intro the show, which I did with a similarly incredulous manner to the OP here.

There's a clips compilation which appears to be accepted as an official part of the franchise, plus another one that isn't; an earlier attempt to reboot resulted in a very odd Nazi/WW2-themed trilogy; as mentioned, there are crossovers with other Band franchises (though nothing quite as weird as Dollman vs Demonic Toys, which is a sequel to Dollman, a sequel to Demonic Toys, and a sequel to Bad Channels); if you see Zahler's movie with an audience it is like being present at the premiere of 'Springtime for Hitler'; and part six, Curse of the Puppetmaster, is a remake of 1970s 'mad scientist slowly turns a man into a snake' grindhouse favourite Sssssss, this time with a mad scientist slowly turning his unwitting patient into... yes, you're way ahead of me.

[Famous Mortimer]

14! Who's watching these and why?

I watched all of them, including the Blade "spin-off" film and the second compilation almost-movie with about 5 seconds of new footage in it from a couple of years back.

After part 1, it was pretty much the completist's urge, well, that and I wanted to see the one that Greg "The Room" Sestero was in. The first one is bad, and everything after that is worse. "The Legacy", the first of the clip compilations, made me want to track down Charles Band and stick a hot poker up his arse - it's not so much a lack of effort, it's knowing that they're just fleecing the few remaining fans of their product and don't give a shit.

[Mister Six]

Cheers, all! So deffo not worth bothering with, then?

And then there was the Puppet Master films.

Should be "were", obviously. What a cunt.

[Famous Mortimer]

If someone holds a gun to your head and demands you watch an entire Charles Band-associated movie series, then go for "Robot Jox" or "Subspecies".

Puppet Master is, of course, Bergman crossed with Tarantino compared with the "Witchcraft" series. 16 movies and counting :(

[Rev+]

"The Legacy", the first of the clip compilations, made me want to track down Charles Band and stick a hot poker up his arse - it's not so much a lack of effort, it's knowing that they're just fleecing the few remaining fans of their product and don't give a shit.

I kind of don't mind that one in a perverse way, because although it's half-arsed it seems to have been specifically made for obsessive fans of the series, if such people genuinely exist.  After a whole bunch of films in which they didn't give two fucks about continuity or plot holes, it's an attempt to hammer out the Puppetmaster 'canon'.  It's still a clip show pisstake, but not quite on the level of something like 'Silent Night Deadly Night 2'.

Not seen it years, but I remember the original 'Trancers' as being quite a decent little B-movie type thing, and have completely divorced it from what Charles Band became.  His best franchise is 'Evil Bong', of course.

[Famous Mortimer]

At least Silent Night Deadly Night 2 has half a new film in there, and the good half of the first movie - "Legacy" has about 5 minutes of new footage.

Trancers is decent, Dollman is fine, but their pickings are exceptionally slim past...the early 90s?

[Famous Mortimer]

I learn that Full Moon's latest effort in barrel-bottom-scraping is an "Baby Oopsie" movie, one of the creatures from the "Demonic Toys" franchise. They must have more hardcore, buy-everything, fans than I previously thought.

[Famous Mortimer]

Oh god, I created an edit glitch. Fuck Full Moon.