Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Edohotep
**full disclosure: an advanced online screener was supplied by Full Moon Features.
Director: Charles Band.
Writers: Charles Band and Shane Bitterling.
Cast: Paul Thomas Arnold, Oto Brezina and Kip Canyon.
The Puppet Master series has evolved to become a product totally different from its first few films. Instead of the murderous dolls that many fans loved, they are still humanity’s saviors in Puppet Master X: Axis Rising. The devotees who have followed the series should know that the sequence of movies is not in chronological order. They are not yet the 80's terrorists that they will become. Back in time, they were fighting for an American cause.
In the latest two movies, the era is still the 40's. This new subset of “Axis” films makes Danny Coogin (Kip Canyon) the new Puppet Master. He found the puppets that Toulin left following his suicide. Where this new narrative goes is in the direction of exploring the web of subterfuge that existed in what looks like Dirty San Francisco. The Nazis and Japanese are plotting to undermine America's wartime efforts!
The story continues where the last movie, Axis of Evil, left off. Ozu (Ada Chau) left the theatre with Tunneler in a burlap bag. She offers this puppet to Moebius (Scott Anthony King), a Nazi commander, in hopes that he will spare her life. But his meeting with a puppet is far from auspicious. He realizes the potential of what these little soldiers can do and he knows nobody can live to link him to what he can do with this marvelous piece of scientific discovery.
And maybe, Freuhoffer (Oto Brezina), a scientist under Moebius’ employ, can rediscover how these puppets come to life for their own rejuvenation device.
This film does a better job at putting together the occult elements from the earlier films, which felt ludicrous and making it believable. Practically all the puppets fit right in to this era better than the modern one. Although older versions existed for the lead puppets: Blade, Leech Woman, Pinhead and Jester are more symbolic of the fears, prejudices and vices of the '40’s. The retro puppets symbolized more of the insecurity of WW1. With WW2 in full swing, the new puppets, namely Bombshell, Blitzkrieg, Wehrmacht and Kamikaze, represented everything the free world back then feared.
Producer Charles Band certainly shows he has a fondness for this era and a skill at inserting some social commentary. Some of Band's previous exploitation products features the past to some degree. He has his burlesque style travelling stage shows and that is only a testimony to what he enjoys creating. The attention to detail on the sets of the films he is involved with is very clear in even the bad movies he has produced. Some fans can chuckle, and he takes criticisms in stride.
Even the villains are hilarious. All the stereotypes, puppets included, are played up for laughs, and no Full Moon Features product can be complete without some buxom bombshell gracing the screen. Stephanie Sanditz has some fun in her role as Uschi and Scott King hams up the role of being Kommandant as well as Sergeant Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes. Both are very blind to certain facts. The only difference, Moebius is angrier!
This movie is entertaining as a pulp fiction product and if it only did more, then this product would not look like another propaganda piece. Even the last movie suffered from the same problem, where Coogin is adamant about wanting to enlist. To have him being followed by an 'All American' drill sergeant does not help this latest film any. But audiences have to remember: movies from that decade did have a spot of why Americans should enlist spiced into its presentation. Band was only crafting what was natural for the period he loves. If the nuances were not put in, then the movie would have been one exercising wartime fury.
One gap, however, still needs to be filled. Where did the puppet Ninja, containing Don Coogin’s soul (Danny’s brother) go? The Japanese connection is forgotten in this film, and that will no doubt be the premise for the next film. The puppet Kamkiaze, true to its namesake, was a one-appearance wonder. If it lived, then that will certainly be a surprise.
More movies will no doubt come, and maybe this time, viewers will get more puppet-on-puppet action. To see the puppets fight in this film was short and unintentionally funny. To see Bombshell fight Leech Woman requires waking up the child’s side of the imagination, or hope that Band can up the budget so the newer puppets in to-be-made films can be as fierce as Chucky in Child’s Play.
While the real war is breaking out, even the puppets have to choose sides too. Just who lives, who dies and who is control adds to the weariness the dolls and audiences must be feeling. Eventually the puppets will turn away from humanity and turn into the monsters that they will one day be. The catalyst will come in the final movie of this franchise.
Overall: 6 out of 10.
More on the film can be found at Full Moon Direct:
Puppet Master X w/trailer at Full Moon Features
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Posted in: 2012,Charles Band,full moon direct,full moon features,movie poster,movie review,nazi,world war ii
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