In tonight's offering, monsters are hunting monsters. It's the tale of Nazis on the verge of successfully completing their mission of bagging a vampire for study by scientists. It's a nicely mounted little chiller, executed with technical competence on all fronts and performed by nothing but talented actors. It's even one of the several films this year that have left me wanting more, but in a good way: It ended in a satisfyingly enough way, but I wanted the story to continue at least a little bit longer!
Enjoy watching monsters being monstrous in the wilds of Romania!
Where Blood Lies (2019)
Starring: Ben Pendergast, David Castro, Alexa Giuffre, and Jay Brown
Over the past couple of weeks, I have encountered three different movie fans who had never heard of the 'Puppet Master' films, one of Charles Band's signature creations and quite possibly his most famous. One of these people hadn't even heard of Charles Band, nor even the possibility that someone would make a horror movie featuring dolls and puppets.
It's probably one of the many signs that I and the rest of my generation are getting old... and that there's a changing of the trash pop-culture guard going on, as we steadily shuffle off Stage Left and the new kids are taking out place, with whatever icons they are bringing with them.
But as I fade into that gentle night, I want to make a shout-out to a couple of films *I* found scary as a kid... a couple of films I think some of you young whipper-snappers with your youPhones and iTubes might find entertaining. They've even recently been released on BluRay, so you know they've got to be good.
This Full Moon Friday is devoted to the three (out of ten so far) Puppet Master films. Two of them are also the best films--perhaps the only decent films--from director DDavid DeCoteau. Check them out, my young friends. See how weird your parents REALLY are... because these are the sorts of films we rented when when we were your age. Yes... we watched movies about killer puppets and nefarious Nazis. And we had to ride our bikes all the way to the video stores or corner gas stations get them them, sometimes even having to reserve copies in advance. And we watched 'em on video tape. That had to be rewound. AND WE LIKED IT!
Puppet Master (1989)
Starring: Paul Le Mat, Robin Frates, Irene Miracle, Barbara Crampton, Kathryn O'Reilly, Matt Roe and William Hickey
Director: David Schmoeller
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
After their friend commits suicide following his discover of a supernatural secret possessed by WW2-era puppeteer and toymaker Andre Toulon (Hickey). four psychics travel to the mansion he killed himself in to investigate. They soon regret launching their investigation, as Toulon's greatest creations--a group of singularly twisted dolls--come to life in order to stalk and kill them in gory ways.
There are some films that one should allow to live in memory. For me, "Puppet Master" is one of those. I first saw this movie in 1990 or so, and I remembered the general story, and the cool stop-motion killer puppets. However, I had absolutely no memory of how awful the acting is, nor how bad much of the dialogue is.
This is probably still one of the best movies to ever emerge from Full Moon Entertainment, and while that may sound like I'm damning with faint praise, I'm not intending to do so. The stop-motion photography and the design of the very creepy killer toys in the film are top-notch, as is the use of sound throughout the film (especially where the toys are concerned). Leech Woman is every bit as disturbing as a I remembered! In fact, this is really the only time where Leech Woman is as gross and disgusting as she needs to be.
Aside from the puppets, the only other thing that works here is the villain (whose nature I won't comment on for fear of ruining the film for those who may not have seen it). He is a truly monstrous character and the final act of the film, where he is revealed along with the full monstrousness of his actions--making the killer puppets look like the toys they are by comparison--is some of the very best movie making that Charles Band has ever presided over.
Although crippled by the bad acting, the creativity of the story and the deadly toys go a long way to making up for that shortcoming. The stop-motion animation is extremely well done, and it's worth seeing this creepy movie for that alone.
Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991)
Starring: Guy Rolfe, Richard Lynch, Ian Abercrombie, Kristopher Logan, Aron Eisenberg, Sarah Douglas and Walter Gotell
Director: David DeCoteau
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
When a vicious Gestapo commander (Lynch) murders his beloved wife Elsa (Douglas), Andre Toulon (Rolfe), a puppeteer with the ability to bring his puppets to full and independent life, turns his creations from instruments of mirth and entertaiment into tools of hatred and revenge.
"Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge" takes viewers back to a time fifty years before the events of the other films to fill in some of the backstory of the magic puppets that are the main monsters of the film, and to explain why they and their creator is so hate-filled and driven by an urge to destroy.
(It's not quite in step with "Puppet Master II", but then that's a big plus in its favor. As a matter of fact, none of the various Puppet Master movies are perfect fits for each other as far as continuity goes.)
The film has a cast that's each perfect in the role that they play, with the classical-featured Guy Rolfe as Andre Toulon and ferret-faced Richard Lynch as the dispicable Major Krause being giving especially noteworthy performances, and a script that actually feels like it could been lifted from a horror movie set during the time the film takes place. (In fact, the pacing of this movie and the style of the dialogue is one of the things that makes this movie so good... it has a classic 1940s-era horror film feel to it, while still delivering all the Full Moon stop animation and creepy puppets that we expect. Leech Woman is as gross here as she ever was. That we witness her tragic origin makes her even grosser in some ways' I wonder if Toulon ever had a lucid moment in which he asked himself, "Why in God's name did I do that to what was supposed to be an immortalization of my wife's beauty?!")
"Puppet Master III" forms a bridge between the horror world inhabited by the likes of Bela Lugosi, George Zucco, and Lionel Atwill, and the modern B-movie horror era of Full Moon regulars Jeffrey Combs, Tim Thomerson and Robin Sydney. It's a film I think any lover of cheesy horror flicks can find something to like in. (Plus, we get to watch Nazi Ubermenchen be killed by tiny puppets while shrieking like schoolgirls. How can you not love a movie like that?)
Retro Puppet Master (1999)
Starring: Greg Sestero, Brigitta Dau, Stephen Blackehart, Jack Donner and Guy Rolfe
Director: David DeCoteau (as Joesph Tennent)
Rating: Five of Ten Stars
It's 1892 and Andre Toulon (Sestero), the young owner and operator of an avant-garde puppet theater in Paris becomes smitten with Ilsa (Dau), the daughter of the Swiss ambassador, when she attends one of his shows. But before romance can bloom, Toulon and Ilsa become the targets of an ancient cult of demon worshippers attempted to retreive the secret of animating dead matter with the spririt of the living that was stolen from them by an Egyptian mystic (Donner). Even as the minions of the cultists destroy everything Toulon holds dear, they place him on the path to his destiny as the beloved and feared Puppet Master.
"Retro Puppet Master" is the seventh entry in Full Moon's most successful franchise, the Puppet Master series. It's actually a decent movie that offers a level of fright that I haven't seen in the series since the original "Puppet Master" film, as well as featuring a decent script and a talented cast of actors (including Guy Rolfe, in his final role). The gore is low, but the tension and excitement is high, as we witness the creation of Andre Toulon's first set of magical puppets and they go on a rampage in defense of their master and his lady love.
Although the heart of the movie is strong, it still has some fatal flaws.
First, we have the usual Full Moon sloppiness as far as continuity goes. The seventh Puppet Master is a prequel that gives fills in more of Andre Toulon's backstory, but its pieces don't quite fit with what we learned in "Puppet Master", "Puppet Master II" or "Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge". (Of course, ignoring "Puppet Master II" counts in this film's favor, as it doesn't fit with any other film in the series, presenting Toulon and Ilsa both as evil psychos.) I've been been a bit bemused by Charles Band's apparent purposeful disregard for continuity in the movies he produces... it's one thing for Universal or Hammer to not give a rat's ass for continuity in the 1940s and 1950s when movies weren't readily available at the corner drugstore or from Amazon.com, but why Band & Company--whose films have been direct-to-video/DVD for most of his career--can't get with the times where it's easy to watch an entire film series back-to-back is beyond me.
Second, "Retro Puppet Master" offers an incomplete story. It ends without explaining a mystery that was set up in the film's framing sequence--how was Toulon's first set of puppets destroyed?--and it ends on the cusp of what sounds like a far more exciting adventure than the one we have just watched, one that will see Toulon and Ilsa in a showdown with the demon cultists. When I see a movie, I expect it to come to a satisfying close, even if the filmmakers are already planning a sequel. This film comes to a close, but it's far from satisfying. (And, to make matters worse, we'll probably never see this story completed, as Band has returned to the series in the "Puppet Master III" mode, with a couple of films set in the 1940s with Toulon's puppets against squaring off against the Nazis.)
Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975) Starring: Dyanne Thorne, Sandi Richman, Jo Jo Deville, Gregory Knoph, Tony Mumolo, Uschi Digard, Maria Marx, Nicolle Riddell, and Georoge "Buck" Flowers Director: Don Edmonds Rating: Six of Ten Stars
Ilsa, the big-breasted Nazi commandant of a concentration camp (Thorne), supervises a series of "medical experiments" that involve torturing women in the most gruesome and unusual fashions. Her hope is to prove that women are more psyscially tough than men, so that Hitler and his generals were allow them to serve on the frontlines of war. She is also on a quest for the ultimate orgasm... and when the freakishly well-endowed prisoner-of-war Wolfe (Knoph) is placed in her camp, she may well achieve it.
I don't often use posters with all the logos and taglines in place to illustrate articles, but the original one for this movie captures everything it's about with such accuracy that I simply had to use it.
One of the truest statements on the poster is that it's a "Different Kind of X." This is a movie that puts the "porn" in "torture porn." The various female torture victims are completely naked while they are cut, stabbed, frozen, cooked, beaten, raped and everything else in between. Ilsa is a sadistic maniac who would give Jigsaw and his girlfriend from the "Saw" series nightmares.
This isn't the sort of film I watch because I'm looking for entertainment; if I hadn't declared the "Nazis Quit!" mini-blogathon, I probably never would have watched a Nazi torture porn film. The too realistic violence in films like this make me ache in the various parts of my body where I've had broken bones or deep cuts, and all the screaming sets my nerves on edge. I had an idea of what I was in for when I slated this film for review--it was legendary when I was a kid and I dissuaded my friends from trying to rent it back when we were young teens and my family was the first with a VCR in the neighborhood--but I had no idea how bad it was.
Not "bad" in the sense of incompetent filmmaking and lousy acting [for the most part... a couple of cast-members must have been sleeping with the director or producer in real life, or I can't see how they ever made it past an audition, and some of the put-on German accents are hilariously awful). No, I'm referring to the fact that five minutes doesn't pass in the film where there isn't a scene of violent sex or brutal torture. It is amazing how much they managed to cram into one movie.
There is so much crammed in here, so much that had me cringing and squirming and making me wonder if I'd ever have an appetite again that the film virtually flew by. I think this is quite possibly one of the most effectively paced films I've ever seen. In fact, I think the only other movie that's had that effect on me--causing me to lose track of how much is left of the movie--once I started watching films with an eye toward writing reviews was "JFK." As much as it made me uncomfortable, I have to give the director credit for keeping me engrossed even as I was repulsed by what I was watching.
While this is without question a sleazy B-movie, it's a testament to its effectiveness that it's very watchable (assuming you want to watch scenes of rape and torture). When a film works as hard to be as offensive as this one is, it is usually boring or unintentionally hilarious. Neither is the case with this film. Heck, I wish there were scenes that were unintentionally funny, because I might be able to have some dinner right about now if there had been. (The closest we get is when Gregory Knoph tries to act, or even deliver lines. It's little wonder that this was his first and only screen credit.)
There are few films I've seen that make Nazis more disgusting that how they are portrayed in "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS." The sad part is that many of the horrible acts shown in this film probably were perpetrated on human beings in real life.
If you're looking for a sleazy Nazi movie, you won't go wrong if you can lay your hands on a copy of this movie; it seems to be out of print in the United States--I borrowed the copy I viewed from a friend who gave me a long warning about the film, because he knows my tastes do not run in this direction. (He also lent me some other, lesser Nazi "torture porn" films which I will watch for the blogathon once my stomach settles.)
However, if you're a pain-numbed gorehound who thinks "Saw" is for pussies and "Urban Flesh" is too tame, maybe you will find yourself disappointed with what this, unarguably, superior early example of the "torture porn" horror subgenre.
Cataclysm (aka "The Nightmare Never Ends" "Shiver", and "Satan's Supper") (1981) Starring: Cameron Mitchell, Marc Lawrence, Faith Clift, Robert Bristol, and Richard Moll Directors: Philip Marshak and Tom McGowan Rating: Three of Ten Stars
A doctor (Clift) is chosen by God to be the one person who can defeat Satan's immortal servant on Earth (Lawrence). Will she act before it's too late, or will she listen to her militantly Atheist husband (Moll)? Meanwhile, a Holocaust survivor (Bristol) and a cop (Mitchell) are also on the trail of Satan's chosen one.
"Cataclysm" is a disaster of a movie. Most of the actors are terrible (Mitchell, Bristol, and Moll being the only exceptions), the storyline is confused (although it is less confused than the boiled-down version of this film that was featured in anthology film "Night Train to Terror") and the film is padded to a degree that has rarely been seen (with the nightmares suffered by Claire being especially annoying s far as that goes). Although the script tackles some interesting issues--God and faith, the nature of evil--its quality is obscured by bad artistic and technical choices on the part of the editor and director, and truly awful delivery of the lines on the part of most of the actors. Faith Clift, who is called upon to carry much of the movie is especially awful.
And then there's the inclusion of the Nazi angle. I don't doubt that an immortal devil would be involved with the likes of Hitler and his gang of loonies, but would he really be so stupid so as to be a hands-on kinda guy? At the rate the Nazis liked to turn on their own, he would be better off as a quiet manipulator instead of an SS officer who runs around machine-gunning Jews. (The whole Nazi angle doesn't add much to the film beyond distraction anyway. It might have been a stronger film if the whole plot with Cameron Mitchell and the Holocaust survivor had been dropped entirely. Or saved for a different movie.)
As far as I know, this full-length version of the film is only available on DVD in multipacks--such as large collections like the "Nightmare Worlds 50 Movie Pack". In most cases, there will be enough other films for this one to not be that big a deal, but I would not recommend spending money on a stand-alone version. (And I'd save this one until you've watched everything else in the set.)
Zombie Lake (1981) Starring: Howard Vernon, Pierre-Marie Escourrou, Marcia Sharif, Robert Foster, Anouchka Lesoeur, Youri Rad and Burt Altman Director: Jean Rollin Rating: Three of Ten Stars
French resistance fighters toss a bunch of dead German soldiers into a lake that was cursed by witches centuries before. A decade later, they emerge from their watery grave to rape and drown skinny-dipping girls and murder villagers.
This is one of those movies where you wonder if anyone read the entire script at any point during production. The film is disjointed with the various plot threads barely connecting or seeming to have drifted in from another movie, the characters' behavior inexplicable at almost every turn, and the zombies being inconsistent and just downright weird.
The inconsistency and weirdness of the film, however, also keeps it entertaining. Time and again, you will marvel at the the Olympic-record setting leaps of logic by characters, gasp at the Grand Canyon-sized plot holes, and shutter at the thought of what sort of writers would come up with the perverted zombies featured in this film. Not only are they Nazi Zombies, but they are Rapist Nazi Zombies. (Of course, any girl atheletes dumb enough to go skinny-dipping in a lake as dirty as the one in his film probably needed to be drowned and raped by Nazi Zombies before they had a chance to fill the world with idiot offspring.)
A steady flow of "did I just see what I thought I saw/hear what I thought I heard moments keep the movie entertaining in a trainwreck sort of way, but the Three rating is about as low as it can possible go without being a Two. It reflects the fact that as awful as this movie is, it's never boring. Heck, compared to "Oasis of the Zombies" (which was produced by the same crew of French film bottom feeders) this is an outright masterpiece.
Speaking of "Oasis of the Zombies", click here to read my review at Movies to Die Before Seeing.
See Nazis get cut down to size by creatures who match their size as far as the level of respect they deserve.
Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991) Starring: Guy Rolfe, Richard Lynch, Ian Abercrombie, Kristopher Logan, Aron Eisenberg, Sarah Douglas and Walter Gotell Director: David DeCoteau Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
When a vicious Gestapo commander (Lynch) murders his wife Elsa (Douglas), Andre Toulon (Rolfe), a puppeteer with the ability to bring his puppets to full and independent life, turns his creations from instruments of mirth and entertaiment into tools of hatred and revenge.
"Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge" takes viewers back to a time fifty years before the events of the other films to fill in some of the backstory of the magic puppets that are the main monsters of the film, and to explain why they and their creator is so hate-filled and driven by an urge to destroy.
(It's not quite in step with "Puppet Master II", but then it doesn't seem to fit well with anything else in the series. As a matter of fact, none of the various Puppet Master movies are perfect fits for each other as far as continuity goes.)
The film has a cast that's each perfect in the role that they play, with the classical-featured Guy Rolfe as Andre Toulon and ferret-faced Richard Lynch as the dispicable Major Krause being giving especially noteworthy performances, and a script that actually feels like it could been lifted from a horror movie set during the time the film takes place. (In fact, the pacing of this movie and the style of the dialogue is one of the things that makes this movie so good... it has a classic 1940s-era horror film feel to it, while still delivering all the Full Moon stop animation and creepy puppets that we expect. Leech Woman is as gross here as she ever was. That we witness her tragic origin makes her even grosser in some ways' I wonder if Toulon ever had a lucid moment in which he asked himself, "Why in God's name did I do that to what was supposed to be an immortalization of my wife's beauty?!")
"Puppet Master III" forms a bridge between the horror world inhabited by the likes of Bela Lugosi, George Zucco, and Lionel Atwill, and the modern B-movie horror era of Full Mooon regulars Jeffrey Combs, Tim Thomerson and Robin Sydney. It's a film I think any lover of cheesy horror flicks can find something to like in. (Plus, we get to watch Nazi Ubermenchen be killed by tiny puppets while shreiking like schoolgirls. How can you not love a movie like that?)
Hard Rock Zombies (1984) Starring: Ted Wells, E.J. Curcio, Jennifer Coe, Lisa Toothman, Jack Bliesener, Susan Prevatte, and Phil Fondacaro Director: Krishna Shah Rating: Three of Ten Stars Four rock musicians (led by E.J. Curcio) on the cusp of making it big are murdered by Adolph Hitler (Bliesener) and Eva Braun (Prevatte) who are alive and well and hiding in California with their sexy daughter (Toothman) who lures innocent travelers to their death with the promise of hot sex. However, underage metal groupie Cassie (Coe) plays one of the band's songs that is based on a medeival chant that raises the dead, so the rockers can take their revenge on Hitler and his clan, as well as play their big gig. Sooner than you can say "I can't believe this movie actually got made", the town is overrun by zombies, and the band's manager (Wells) must save not only the virginal Cassie but the entire world.
"Hard Rock Zombies" is one of those movies that's so bad it's good... or almost good in this particular case, because it has a fatal flaw. It doesn't take itself seriously, and the creators obviously knew they were making an incredibly goofy movie (with a werewolf grandma, midgets, zombies, and Hitler, how could they not?), and this sense of fun greatly helps the movie along.
Among the comedy highlights are the various members of the Hitler Clan; a Nazi zombie midget's pursuit of lovers in the woods and his later attempt to devour a cow; the townsfolks various schemes to escape death by the teeth of the flesh-eating zombies, and the manager's speech to the record label executive (who has been zombiefied).
However, what keeps this film from rising to the level of a truly good bad movie is the awful music. The songs that we are treated to (three of them, in their excrutiating entirety) are so awful that I thanked God for the 2x speed setting on my DVD player.
I never have understood why these films that feature a supposedly great band are so often plagued with the most atrociously boring songs. When I worked a music reviewer, I have dozens and dozens of tapes from up-and-coming and completely undiscovered bands in my office, and I'm certain that anyone of them would have let movie producers use their songs for very little cash. In fact, those songs may even have been acquired cheaper than those atrocities written specifically for the crappy movies in which they're heard. (And I'm certain a music critic such as myself would have directed a producer to one of his favorite "undiscovereds" for very little , or perhaps even just a thank-you in the credits of the movie.)
But, the producers of "Hard Rock Zombies" didn't do that. So, we've got long, tortourous sequences of this band that gets praised by a big time record producer as being great, something that breaks the audience's ability to suspend their disbelief (and this in a film featuring werewolves, Hitler, and zombie midgets).
(Another possible drawback to the film is the pedopheliac tendencies of the band leader, Jessie. My first thought was "he's a pretty nice guy" when he seemed to be friendly toward the shy, very underage Cassie. But then he started writing love-songs to her and borderline stalking her. I can't quite get a read on what the intention of the writers and director was with Jessie's attraction to jail-bait, but it's disturbing upon reflection. Although I'm sure it would be Roman Polanski's favorite thing about the film.)
This review was posted as part of the an observance of the 65th anniversary of the final defeat of Nazi Germany.
Shock Waves (1977) Starring: Brooke Adams, Luke Halpin, Fred Buch, Jack Davidson, D.J. Sidney, Peter Cushing, John Stout and John Carradine Director: Ken Wiederhorn Rating: Six of Ten Stars
Two young couples (Adams, Halpin, Buch and Sidney) are stranded on a remote island as undead Nazi supersoldiers rise from the ocean's depths to take revenge on their creator (Cushing) and all the living.
"Shock Waves" sounds like it should be the ultimate cheese-fest--how can something featuring underwater Nazi zombies NOT be? Especially a movie from the 1970s, made by inexperienced filmmakers on a shoestring budget?
Well, in the case of this film, the inexperience worked in their favor.
With classic horror stars Peter Cushing and John Carradine available each for four days of the film's four-week shooting schedule, director Ken Wiederhorn set out to make a movie in the vein of the old fashioned 1950s and 1960s Hammer horror fests but with a more modern sensibility. What he ended up with was a film that included some of the sexiness of a Hammer picture--Brooke Adams spends much of a film in a bikini and the rest of it in a barely buttoned shirt--and the mood over high velocity splatter that was increasingly in vogue during the late 1970s.
But, Weiderhorn, mostly be accident if the coversation on the DVD commentary can be believed, created a film that is far more of a mood piece than a horror show, with the zombie attacks being as horrorfying as they not so much because they are underwater Nazi zombies that seem to be able to pop up anywhere there's water (even in a disused swimming pool), but because there is an atmosphere of hazy, nightmarish dread that permeates the entire film from the moment our protaganists encounter a strange weather phenomena at sea to the final image of a sunburned, blistering Brook Adams.
With creepy locations, creative camerawork, surpringly creepy Nazi zombies and good performances by all cast members, "Shock Waves" is a film that is undeserving of its obscure status. It's almost worth seeing for Brooke Adams alone, as she is one of the better "damsels in distress" I've encountered in a horror movie, possessing a pretty face, an attractive body, and vulnerable quality that makes you fear for her safety throughout and whince with extra sympathy when she is terrorized or injured.
And then there's Peter Cushing. While this isn't is best performance--his "German" accent is even more suspicious than the "Swedish" one he tried to do in "The Beast Must Die,"--he still draws your attention like metal shavings to a magnet in every scene he appears in. He is thoroughly believable and repulsive as the Nazi commandant who eventually gets what he deserves.
But even setting Adams and Cushing aside, this film is undoubtedly the masterpiece of underwater Nazi zombie movies. Maybe Oliver Stone can do a remake, once he's done showing us all how Hitler really wasn't such a bad guy,(as explained at Shades of Gray) with the Nazi zombies being heroic champions of a Greener Planet. After all, Underwater Nazi Zombies have no carbon footprint whatsoever!
Outpost (2008)
Starring: Ray Stevenson, Julian Wadham, Richard Brake, Brett Fancey, Paul Blair, Enoch Frost, Michael Smiley and Julian Rivett
Director: Steve Barker
Rating: Six of Ten Stars
A group of mercenaries are hired to escort a scientist to a desolate area within a civil-war torn eastern European nation. Here, they find a bunker that's been abandoned since WW2, a bunker that houses a Nazi experiment that was never quite brought to a close....
"Outpost" is a pretty straight-forward, no-frills horror movie where our cast of tough guys spend ten minutes getting to the "haunted house", half an hour realizing they're not alone and they're in big trouble, and the last hour trying to figure out a way to save themselves while being slaughtered one by one.
This is a decently paced fright-fest that offers up a pseudo-scientific explanation for the origins of the undead/time-lost Nazi monsters our unsavory mercenary heroes come up against. (Ah, the Nazis... has any other group of lunatic scumbags been as rich and varied a source for so many genres of movies and fiction?)
The only complaint I have is that I wish the writers and/or director had spent a little more time on figuring out the how's and why's of the creatures; their abilities and strength seems to change and vary for no reason other than plot demands. That isn't enough to knock the film to the low end of average though.
For a frightfest that won't put any strain on your brain, I recommend "Outpost".
