Puppet Master Week: Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge

A fine greetings to you all and welcome back for Day 3 of Puppet Master Week. This next installment of the Puppet Master's franchise is pure flashback as Toulon was removed from the Fatherland during the war. We will have to excuse their lack of continuity as Toulon had already fled to the states in 1939 according to the first film so the fact he is in Nazi Germany in 1941 strikes of a goof. This is Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge.

Jester doesn't like this version of Punch N Judy.

Being a brilliant marionette craftsman and puppeteer, Andre Toulon (Guy Rolfe of The Stranglers of Bombay, Yesterday's Enemy, Dolls, Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge, Puppet Master 4, Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter and Retro Puppet Master) entertains the youth of Berlin with puppet shows with political satire of Hitler losing to a puppet named Sixshooter, a cowboy with six arms and six pistols so he is certain not to miss. With him in his theater, his beloved wife of much younger years Elsa (Sarah Douglas of Superman II, Conan the Destroyer, Falcon Crest, The Return of the Swamp Thing, Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time, Babylon 5, Stargate SG-1 and Strippers vs Werewolves)make a decent living until... a little goosestepping tattletale finklestein rats them to the Gestapo.

Head of Gestapo Major Kraus (Richard Lynch of The Sword and the Sorcerer, Invasion U.S.A., Trancers II, Maximum Force, Merlin, Werewolf, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Halloween, Laid to Rest and The Lords of Salem) is offended at the depiction of Hitler and sends his boys over to Toulon when his boy informs him of the formula injections to the puppets bringing them life when the head of Deathcorp (a reanimate project to bring soldiers back to life and return them to the Russian front) insists on conversing with this alchemist and his formula process in order to make his project a complete success. Kraus' men shoot Elsa, clap Toulon in irons and burn his theater as it is an affront to Da Freur. Clearly those equations, reverse engineering and chemical compositions will just slip from Toulon's mouth now.

Gotta move this body upstate.

After his daring escape from the Nutzis, Toulon demands revenge and even turns his late wife's present into Leech Woman... also just suspend disbelief that Sixshooter was not in the original two prior and he uh... got lost in the move to California. There! Moving along we can see the head of Deathcorp is working painstakingly to decipher the formula and finish his work which of course is of the highest order to Da Freur... like Ilsa's death camp, the SS Love camp, Fraulein Devil and Hell let's throw in Werewolf Women of the SS in there as well.

The puppets spring into action and it looks like curtains for the Third Reich as they systematically proceed whip the Nazis make them very sour krauts.

A couple of snippets on the movie now. Several of the key puppets from the first two are given an origin story as well as the formula is explained. David Allen Productions were back and rocking the animatronics as well as the stop motion animation. Principal photography was done in about 18 days. Previously, the crew was scheduled to go to Romania to shoot in 1991 but the political uprising may have put a damper on that and they thought it was to use Universal Studios back-lot instead.

A few historical inaccuracies aside, this was entertaining more-so than the first two. Gore is not ratcheted up to the same level as the previous but it is still bloody and yeah nudity is brief but available, so parents, you have been warned.

Zombie Ted looks on in horror.