Schloptoberfest: Puppet Master
Puppet Master
1989
Directed by: David Schmoeller
Written By: Charles Band (you will soon notice pattern here)
Genre: Egyptian demonic killer puppet psychic slashers
Checklist
- A killer puppet with a drill for a head
- A killer puppet that has sex with men and then pukes leeches onto them
- Nazi puppets!
- Exploitative 80s psychic sex scenes
Tagline
Evil Comes in all sizes.
What Netflix says happens:
“In director David Schmoeller’s taut chiller, perverse master puppeteer Andre Toulon (William Hickey) harnesses the power of ancient Egyptian magic to breathe life into his crew of marionettes, who morph into demonic killers. Many years later, a group of modern psychics looking for clues to explain a mutual friend’s mysterious suicide end up trapped in a creepy hotel stalked by Toulon’s miniature assassins. Paul Le Mat also stars.”
What really happens:
A guy who really likes puppets is killed by Nazis. Fast-forward 50 years and some guy in the same hotel dies. A bunch of psychics show up for some reason or another and start being jerks and having psychic sex all over the goddamned place. Then some puppets that are alive for some reason (“Egyptian magic” the movie explains) start murdering them all. The two main love interests survive and a bad guy shows up to fight them. The puppets kill the bad guy and then the good guy leaves.
Brief Thoughts:
The ending. What ending? After the puppets kill everyone the antagonist reveals himself and his devilish plan (to do what?) and tries to kill the two main love interests. The puppets then kill him in an elevator through no help from either of the main characters. It then cuts to the next morning and the good guy leaving the hotel. Wait what?! The puppets just stopped apparently after killing this guy? And the two characters stayed the rest of the night in a hotel where half a dozen people were just murdered by demonic killer puppets without calling police or anything? And then the guy just leaves the hotel and says ‘Hey tootse, maybe you should come by where I live some day.” The End.
On the other hand it did have fucking sweet stop-motion and some great death scenes including the nightmare inducing, leech puking succubus puppet. Two thumbs up!
Schloptoberfest Kick-off!
A while back there used to exist a mom and pop video store near my house. On Tuesdays you could go and rent VHS tapes for a week for 50 cents a piece. This was back when I was fresh out of school and had no job and lots of free time. Every Tuesday I would go and rent ten or so of the awesomest available-only-on-VHS movies I could find. A lot were pretty bad, but a lot were also totally awesome. I started capturing my favorites with the TV Tuner card I had my VCR hooked into. I started releasing one or so a week on torrents, along with a short little writeup of them. Most of these were movies that were long forgotten and impossible to get a hold of and I loved sharing them with people.
Of course after a year or less of doing that the store shut down and I stopped finding those awesome movies. I still like writing about lesser known movies, be they really bad or really bad, but I never seem to be able to gather the effort to be able to do more than one or two before I quit.
Where am I going with this? Anyway, the short little write ups I used to do I think are the perfect succinct little blurb to be able to accomplish (or so I hope) more than one or two times.
So earlier this month, being October, thanks to the wonders of Netflix Instant Streaming I started watching and re-watching some of my favorite awesomely bad 80s & 90s horror movies. Not entirely unlike Alex Navarro’s 30 Days of Hate over at Screened.com I figured I would try and do a small writeup for each of them and see how far we get. But unlike his pieces, these movies are totally good and should totally be watched. And then I decided to call it Schloptoberfest for some reason. So look forward to some of your favorites from Full Moon Entertainment and occasionally overlooked horror (or maybe not) classics from the direct to VHS age.
It’s a Boy! or “So You’ve Become a Host to an Alien Lifeform”
First, let me say congratulations! It is truly an honor to carry forth into the world the new dawn of evolution! I am sure you have some questions, but don’t worry, everything will be explained. You’re going to be so happy!
Now, the first symptom you may notice is most likely the drowsiness. Because of the energy required, the majority of your body’s calories will be going straight to your new baby. This is nothing to worry about and to make sure everything is hunkie-dorie you will be supplied with a high-calorie sludge that’s sure to tickle your taste-buds!
The second thing you may notice may be an increase in dreams, especially extremely lucid ones. Visions of far off alien worlds and horrible creatures are not uncommon and can in fact be quite fun! It’s like going on a vacation, but without having to leave the comfort of your pod!
The third thing you will definitely notice is the gigantic bulge underneath your skin in your abdomen area. This is due to the extreme growth of the gestating organism living inside you. Again, this is completely normal and is nothing at all to worry about. And don’t worry, the pain will only last for a few days. Followed by an even more excruciating pain. That pain will thankfully stop a fews days later when it eats its way upwards and expunges itself from the top of your head.
You will have plenty of time to get acquainted sharing your body with your new offspring (I say ‘your offspring’, but well, we both know its not completely yours 
) , and during this extended period of semi-catatonics you will have time to do a lot of thinking. It’s best if you try not to think about “How did this happen?” or “Why me?” or “What this terrible thing is growing inside me oh god it feels like my insides are on fire,” and instead just focus on the wonderful future in store for your bouncing baby boy (it literally bounces…what an amazing discovery!). Rest assured that in your absence, your offspring will receive nothing but the best of care from an entire team of scientists and technicians.
So again, congratulations and thank you for doing your part to ensure the well being of the future of the human race!
Curse You Red Baron!
I have always heartily enjoyed Read Baron Brand pizza. Although there is something strange about eating an American-made Italian dish formed with French ingredients and prepared by a German WWI flying ace. Strange and delicious! And you can take that to the bank!
...the blood bank!
However, this last frozen meal left me quite disappointed in the Baron. Now, I realize that no food item is ever going to look like it does on the box, but this is just ridiculous. Just look at this travesty:
Red Baron Box...mmm delicioso.
More like "The Red BARREN!!!"
No wonder the Red Baron is dead. If some pizza shit (pun #3 for those keeping track) like this was named after me I’d fill my plane with bees and fly it into the Eiffel Tower too!
Teabagging at Work
Freedom’s tea-related engineering is getting more and more involved everyday.
Thanks Chris
Listening to
Playing
Archives
- December 2010 (4)
- October 2010 (3)
- June 2010 (1)
- April 2010 (1)
- March 2010 (2)
- December 2009 (3)
- October 2009 (1)
- September 2009 (1)
- August 2009 (1)
- June 2009 (3)
- May 2009 (2)
- April 2009 (1)
- March 2009 (2)
- February 2009 (2)