Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

To begin with, before I even watched this 7th film in the Puppet Master series, I had long given up on expecting anything half-way decent from the folks at Full Moon Video. With that said, I buckled down and forced myself to watch Retro Puppet Master. And what I got was more of the same cheesy crap that pretty much makes up most of the Puppet Master series. Much like the previous film, Curse of the Puppet Master, the only bright spot for this film was the original idea of the plot. This film is basically another prequel in which it shows the young Andre Toulon and how he originally discovered the secrets of bringing his puppets to life, and how he must save himself as well as the one he loves, Ilsa (in previous films, her name had been spelled Elsa, but who's counting?) from the evil servants of the Egyptian god Sutekh. Oh, and while I'm at it, is it worth mentioned that in the very first Puppet Master, Andre Toulon is shown killing myself in 1939. This "flashback" story told by Toulon takes place in 1944. Hmmm..I guess someone didn't do their homework! Now don't get me wrong, the story is pretty cheesy, but for this series, its a step up from some of the others as far as plot goes. But if one can look past the weak plot, it is impossible to ignore the absolute HORRIBLE execution at making this film. The effects of the Puppet Master series has never been that great, but with this film being made in 1999, and the series itself at this point being 10 years old, one would be inclined one to think that the advances in special effects and technology would help out a great deal with a film like this. But to extreme my disappointment, the effects in this film has got to be the worst in the series so far. The puppets in action looked like something a 10 year old kid could do in his spare time in his parent's basement! Not just that, but the effects of the "powers" used by the servants of Sutekh and the old man were just plain stupid looking. Are you telling me that this is the best they could have done? I don't think so, since the effects in the very first Puppet Master were 10 times better than this! As far as acting, I've seen worse, but again, there is some bad acting here. But it just wasn't the actors, the writing was at fault as well. Just some really bad dialog takes place here. For example, the repeating of lines by the three evil servants of Sutekh is just utterly dumb, and the few lines given to Toulon's puppeteer friends toward the beginning of the film is just plain bad. In closing, this is yet another really bad Puppet Master sequel. But like I said before, I had long since given up on this series and wasn't expecting much. This film has no redeeming qualities to cause anyone to watch it more than once, and is really not worth watching even once to begin with. With that said, there's no reason to buy this unless you need it to complete your Puppet Master series.

Personally, I liked PMR. I wouldn't say it was the BEST out of the Puppet Master series, but you must understand the fact that the character Toulon is in fact a storyteller...which is what he's doing in this film. When you take the entire series under the light of Toulon telling a story with his wonderful puppet friends, it gives the Puppet Master videos a sort of creepy Captain Kangaroo vibe. It's like Jim Henson came back from the dead to teach us that we shouldn't have made Elmo the star of Sesame Street...
All I can tell you is that watch each Puppet Master movie with a fresh eye. Forget about what you saw in a previous PM movie, and take in the new story line. It's like watching a new Puppet story. Each film is special in its own way, just like Toulon's lovable, mighty puppets!