The Puppet Master Continues: Puppet Master: Axis of Evil

ey there folks and welcome back to Day 4 of The Puppet Master Continues.  I took a mild break from these to bring you a podcast yesterday and hope you all got to enjoy #2 of Rotten Ramblin' On .  That in mind I did say we would dredge into YET another Puppet Master and this is also another time period piece... which people cannot seem to research their own source material.  We move back to 1939 with the Nazis hot on Toulon's trail in the Bodega Bay Inn as Toulon (William Hickey via archive footage) has just eaten his revolver and the Nazis consider this a dead end now but we never did find out if the puppets had respond to the loss of their beloved master.  With that, a young man investigates Toulon's room and finds more than he could have imagined.  This is Puppet Master 9: Axis of Evil.

Blade returns to smite Nazis!!!

Taking place in 1939, Danny Coogan (Levi Fiehler of In the Moment, Moonshine Inc., Wolf Town, Fetching, Crosshairs and Glitch) starts us off with making a series of wooden chairs for his Uncle Len's (Jerry Hoffman of Eight Is Enough, A Day for Thanks on Walton's Mountain, The Ratings Game, The Thirst and The Things We Carry) wedding reception and we are treated to a patriotic whining not unlike Steve Rogers in how he cannot get into the army and fight Nazis due to a limp in his leg.   Danny is hip to Toulon in that he knows he is on the run from the Nazis but for what reason there is no real indication.  Danny is actually on his way to Toulon's room when he hears a gunshot and sees two black garbed men goosestep their way from the room.

The House That Dripped...Puppet Juice??

 Toulon had previously shown Danny his puppets and began telling him the tale of his formula and miracle it can bestow on the puppets.   He looks around the room and finds a wall panel that doesn't seem to line up with the rest of the room finding the puppets with re-introduction to Six Shooter and a new puppet named Ninja.

With the Nazi assassins still at large, Danny accidentally discovers a plot to sabotage a bomb manufacturing plant as he recognizes one of the workers as one of the men trailing Toulon.  Desperate to warn his girlfriend Beth (Jenna Gahllaher of Nightfall and Puppet Master: Axis of Evil) that this Max is a Nazi, she doesn't believe him and he trails Max to an old Opera House in Chinatown to uncover the plot.   Long story into it, Max sends his partner Klaus to take care of this snooper at of all places, his brother's sendoff party before he is overseas.

Klaus ends up killing Danny's mom and mortally wounds his brother.  Following Toulon's notes, Danny transfers his brother Don's soul into Ninja and the rest of the puppets are also reanimated for a showdown with some ratzis.   Will the Reich be foiled?  Can Donny be a true puppet master?  Whatever happened to Beth?

A handful of facts now about the flick.  This is the first Puppet Master movie to be shot in Asia, more specifically China.  This is also the first Puppet Master film to occur in almost seven years since Puppet Master: The Legacy.  Interestingly enough both this Puppet Master and the flick Killjoy 3 were filmed back to back then released in 2009.   Sadly I could see a bit of electric tape put around Ninja's had to hold up his katana.  There was a big debate on whether or not L.A.'s Chinatown had neon signs during the 1940s and finally director David DeCoteau decided it did and it gave the night scene more levels.   Yeah, following the trend past Puppet Master 5, there is no stop animation and more mono-filament wire.  Ugh.

Nutzis is the craziest of peoples....