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.

Tremors Week : Tremors 4: The Legend Begins

Welcome back buckaroos to further adventures of Graboids and their prey…which is just about anything that cannot run fast enough or stop making sound.  Well today we throw off the shackles of what we know about this creatures and how to track them.  In fact, let’s get rid of all those technological marvels that would aid in capture and elimination and go back to a simpler time in Americana.  Say about 1889 when Perfection Valley went under a different name of Rejection.   So grab your ten gallon hat, your six-shooter and do your level best to blast a critter.   This is Tremors 4: The Legend Begins.

 

Mmm Mexican. My favorite!

Black Hand Kelly: I’ll tell ya one thing, I ain’t got your book-learnin’, but I do know this: being full-growed don’t make ya a spoiler.

The founding members of Rejection Valley are more or less dependent on the silver mine residing near the valley.   Deep in the mines a hot spring erupts and causes a series of eggs to hatch and the mine becomes a death trap for anyone that sets foot in it.  Christine Lord (Sara Botsford of E.N.G., As the World Turns and The Arrow) runs the local tavern and hotel. Pyong Lien Chang (Ming Lo of Jarhead, Million Dollar Baby and The Pursuit of Happyness) and his wife Lu Wan (Lydia Look of The Proud Family, 10,000 Days and Battle of the Damned) run the local grocery and feed store.

Alright, which one of you had beans yet again?!

Burt Gummer’s ancestor Hiram Gummer (Michael Gross of Family Ties, With a Vengeance, Tremors, Avalanche, Tremors II: Aftershocks, Ground Control and Batman Beyond: The Movie) is the exact opposite of his descendant in that he is a well-mannered, lofty businessman from the East with no experience with firearms or any real physical activity at all.  This man is at best a dandy and demands to know why his silver mine is not being productive. One of the miners Juan Pedilla (Brent Roam of Deep Blue Sea, Desert Saints, Toolbox Murders and Patients) speaks out on what the town has agreed as sensationalist hooey.   That the mine is infested with desert dragons as they call them and Hiram will have not of this.   Hiram mounts up a few miners with guns and they proceed out to the valley in the hopes of putting an end to this nonsense.  Low and behold creatures spring out from the ground and proceed to devour the miners. 

With only Juan and Hiram to make it back alive the town believes the only way to end this nightmare is hiring a lethal and professional gunfighter the name of Black Hand Kelly (Billy Drago of The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., Charmed, Revamped, Demon Hunter, The Hills Have Eyes and Revamped) in the hopes that the crisis will be averted.

Blast that crazed howler monkey offscreen!!

And now I have just a bit of information of the film, with being shot in 35mm Dolby Digital, a bit of crane work and mostly dolly, the fine folks of K.N.B. EFX Group (Day of the Dead, Evil Dead II, From Dusk til Dawn, Phantasm II, Bride of the Re-Animator) and miniatures effects 4-Ward Productions (Tremors, Darkman, Batman Returns, Captain Ron, Dracula and Planet of the Apes) work side by side to create the hybrids of scale model and forced perspective as well as full scale prosthetic creatures. 

I, myself am not the biggest fan of prequels but I do understand that they wanted to tap into a formula with the series to renew it and make it fresh.  All in all I thought the production came out well but yes I also found it a bit more hammy than Brian Adams love songs.