That Ole Toulon Magic: When Puppets Go Bad

The first Puppetmaster kind of sets up the series to come yet could also be a standalone not really in need of any endless series of sequels. Still, I think as a means to show how to swing a minor budget and not make the menacing dolls on the attack not look tacky, director Schmoeller does well by shooting them in cautious ways (head in close up, POV from their perspective, the camera “moving about” through the said POV technique to show them walking and avoiding detection by scurrying behind furniture and objects to hide themselves in plain sight until they want to be seen, carefully showing upper torso and only showing lower torso when the shot could be just right for a convincing “live” doll). The cast must be interesting enough to hold our attention when the dolls aren’t committing homicidal mischief. Paul Le Mat is okay (I was never all that won over by him, but he has been in some good movies in the past), but I think it is Miracle as the kooky white witch (with imitation Southern drawl) who steals the film. The rest offer a degree of fun support to Le Mat. I thought Robin Frates was striking as Mrs. Gallagher, the wife of the nasty piece of work, Jimmie F Skaggs (I wish the film had gotten more out of him; he was a real monster in his limited time). Matt Roe, with his pony tail and balding head, and the sensual Kathryn O’Reilly, as psychic researcher (Skaggs enlisted his aid in attempting to uncover the power of the last “modern alchemists”) and psychic “feeler” (O’Reilly can lay on a bed and feel exactly as those who had intimate encounters on it, or she can sit in a car and feel as those who were in the seat before her). William Hickey made a guest appearance as Andre Toulon, a gifted alchemist and puppet-maker (and performer), chased by the Nazis for his secrets in making inanimate objects “come to life”. Mews Small is the housekeeper with a very distinctively animated voice. This isn’t a bad cast, overall, but I think Puppetmaster may be one of those horror films that might not necessarily stand the test of time. It is certainly a masterpiece compared to some of the later sequels. It was in its day a film I rented on numerous occasions as did many others. I can only imagine Le Mat and company couldn’t have imagined there would be a limitless number of sequels to come after its 1989 video release.

The sequel is a followup of sorts to Puppetmaster, but it is its own animal. David Allen was granted the director's chair for this sequel, and you get more bang for your buck here in that he delivers plenty of stop motion artistry and a lot more puppets. There's back story that provides a source for Toulon's learning of the alchemy that allows his puppets to move around freely and kill. An Arab Magician who offers the secret to Toulon and affords him to wow the children with marionettes not trapped by strings is shown to us in flashback. Toulon wishes to return to life Elsa, his wife from long ago, much to the chagrin of the puppets who unearthed him to keep them from fading. Allen gives Toulon the look of a Bulgarian Invisible Man, with the bandages and goggles.

I didn’t particularly like how the film disposes of the characters from the previous film. Le Mat is said to have died in an institution from madness and seizures, while Frates was told to us to have had her brains removed from her skull. The plot continues to get nastier in its conception of how Toulon (resurrected from the grave by his puppets) is able to “get enough reanimation fluid” through the taking of brain matter from live humans (the animals just won’t do). Toulon realizes that a paranormal researcher (Elizabeth Maclellan whose final film this was inexplicably; I thought she was actually quite good in the lead) looks just like his Elsa, wanting her for himself. Toulon is cold blooded and jealous, as another suitor (Collin Bernsen; the son of a psychic that was part of the paranormal government team sent to the resort on Bodega Bay after the experiences of Le Mat’s character, told to have been a horrible end despite how well and sound he appeared at the end of Puppetmaster) is vying for affections (and succeeding).

The other cast members that make up Maclellan’s crew researching the resort are sadly just fodder for the puppets: Greg Webb as Maclellan’s brother (exiting the film really early; he pokes fun at Nita Talbot’s psychic and her “way with words” and flair for the melodramatic), Charlie Spradling (of Bad Channels & Meridian; her nice looking body is only seen naked momentarily in PM II) and Jeff Celentano are lovers who flirt and have sex off screen, bumped off immediately afterward by the puppets. Talbot is not in the film very long but makes her presence felt with her flashy part as Camille, the psychic, notorious for her work in tabloid nonsense to pay the bills. Bewilderingly, the puppets choose her as their new leader once Toulon betrays their trust. I think with the ending, the film goes off the rails. It departs with characters swiftly without developing them much at all. Torch is introduced as a new doll while leech woman is burnt up in a furnace by a hick hag played by a loud Sage Allen while Buck Flower is a farmer husband of hers…they try to put up an electrical barbwire fence to keep out the puppets who had been murdering their animals for the brain matter.

I was a bit disappointed that Blade kind of takes a back seat so that Allen could put over Torch. Pinhead gets to trip people, and Leach slices (!) Buck Flower instead of the leeches vomited in the first film. Blade cuts up some folks but he was so much more substantial in the first film. Jester is all sad-faced until the very end when that devious grin returns when it is at full strength. Tunneler goes down after drilling a hole in the skull of a victim right between his eyes. The puppet stars move in stop motion a lot more and are shown in detailed movement...perhaps due to Allen's directing the film. Just his involvement in the chair gives this sequel a curio quality. He does okay. I think this is still better than many of the sequels that came after it.

I still hold the opinion that the next film is the best of the series and provides us with the best Toulon.