'Axis Termination' is Quality Puppet Master!

Puppet Master: Axis Termination (2017)
Starring: Paul Logan, Tonya Kay, Kevin Allen Scott, George Appleby, Tania Fox, Alynxia America, and Lilou Vos
Director: Charles Band
Producers: Charles Band and Dale Cooper
Rating Six of Ten Stars

As a pair of Nazi mystics (Kay and Scott) and their band of psychopaths are on the verge of unlocking ancient secrets that will allow them to create unstoppable super-soldiers, an elite force of psychics in the employ of the United States Army (America, Appleby, and Fox), together with their new liaison officer (Logan), launch a desperate attempt to stop them once and for all. Meanwhile, Toulon's puppets sqaure off against their Nazi-animated counterparts.

The first two entries in the three films that have made up the latest reboot of the "Puppet Master" series were disappointments. But, since I remain ever-hopeful that Charles Band will give me another "The Creeps" or "Blood Dolls", I keep coming back for more. (Also, there's usually JUST enough in whatever film I've most recently been regretting to give me hope for the next one.)

 When the film opened with a clumsy and perfunctory elimination of the main characters from the first two movies, I feared I was in for more of the same disjointed story-telling that helped drag those previous films down. Those fears became greater as those were followed by a pair of talkie, over-long scenes that swept aside much of what the two previous films had been about.

But THEN the film got going in earnest, and I realized that the restaging and the introduction of an entirely new set of characters and a new plot direction in this third and final part of what had been described as a "trilogy" was all about picking up some of the plot threads from one of my favorite Puppet Master films--"Retro Puppet Master"! While the film still dragged a little here and there, and the acting left a little to be desired at points, the return of the full-tilt mysticism and expansion upon the Eldritch Horror Roots of the puppets more than made up for this.

The film even featured honest-to-god Puppet Masters, which the previous two didn't really, and the Nazi Mystics vs. Allied Mystics also helped the film a great deal. The puppets were also better animated than they've been for a long, long time, something which made up for the fact that Blade's design didn't match what had been present in the past two movies. (I have seen some comment they were disappointed that some of the puppet "animation" was done using actors in costume against a green screen. It didn't bother me at all, but then I've been watching Band productions for 30 years now so I've seen far worse.)

Another minor plus is they even got the hairstyles on the female characters right for the period in which the film was set. It's not that I'm a fashion expert... I just watch a lot of movies from the period the last few Puppet Master films have been set in, so little things like that stick out to me. Check out my Shades of Gray blog for reviews of black-and-white movies and more!

While the acting was generally not anything to cheer about, George Appleby and Tonya Kay gave nice performances as the lead good and evil mystics respectively. The characters had history, and while it's not fully explained in the film, he was felt in the performance and it made the characters more real. Kevin Allen Scott and Lilou Vos were also scary as the lead Nazi psychopaths... with Scott being particularly impressive, even with his magical powers being expressed through supremely cheesy digital effects.

While "Puppet Master: Axis Termination" is far from a perfect movie, it ended this go-around with the killer puppets and dolls on a high note. I, once again, find myself encouraged by what I perceive as a general upward trend in the overall quality of Band's productions. Maybe we've hit rock bottom, and it will only get better from here.

'Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong': A Bad Trip?

Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong (2013)
Starring: John Patrick Jordan, Robin Sydney, Sonny Carl Davis, The Don, and Michelle Mais
Director: Charles Band
Producers: Charles Band and Nakai Nelson
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

When Larnell (Jordan) and Sarah Leigh (Sydney) happen to open a pot shop and a bakery within walking distance of each other, their dark pasts--his involving an evil, sentient bong; and hers a homicidal, enchanted cookie--collide with lethally moronic results.

As the title makes clear, this film crosses Full Moon's Gingerdead Man series (slasher movie spoofs) and Evil Bong series (stoner comedies). I sat down to watch the film with high hopes but low expectations, as Charles Band has disappointed me more in recent years than not. Sadly, my hopes were yet again dashed.

"Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong" features a script that gives us less or a story and more a string of loosely strung together jokes and puns--few of which are funny; and which has weak dialogue being delivered by actors who for the most seem to be struggling to bring their characters to life. To add insult to the injury already done, the film feels padded because of an overlong recap of every single high point of the three "Evil Bong" pictures that preceded this one, even though most of that was completely unnecessary back story for this picture, that because there are some exchanges among characters that are redundant to ones the audience sat through moments before.

The worst part, however, is that the implied clash between Full Moon's weirdest characters is little more than an exchange of insults. Even after he goes to Bong World, Millard the Gingerdead Man doesn't do anything that's a threat to Eebee the Evil Bong in any way. Even the non-ending ending of this film (which annoyed me here as it has on so many other Band productions) didn't even feel like it was teasing an interesting sequel where the fight promised by the premise would occur.

The film is not without good points, however. Sonny Carl Davis is even funnier as Rabbit than he's been in previous films (and he's traded in the priest collar he was wearing when last seen for a name-tag and a briefcase and a job as a traveling salesman of Evil Bong-branded merchandise), and the scene where Luann (from the first couple "Evil Bong" films) and Sarah Leigh (from "Gingerdead Man") meet each other is lots of fun. Both characters were played by Robin Sydney, and she gets to trade insults with herself while playing both characters appear on screen via the magic of trick photography. Also, John Patrick Jordan has perfected his startled Larnell "eep!" and delivers it with such comedic timing that he delivers some of the films best laughs. Finally, more effort is also put into animated the film's titular creatures than in previous sequels, even if the Gingerdead Man looks like a hand-puppet in a couple of scenes.

So is "Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong" worth your time? If you're a fan of the loose structure and sophomoric humor that was  the hallmark of the "Evil Bong" pictures so far, yes. If you're a fan of the slasher spoofs and sophomoric humor of the "Gingerdead Man" pictures, probably not. Despite the fact that I get the distinct sense that Sarah Leigh will be stepping into Luann's shoes in future installments of this series (which I will be watching and reviewing in this space), the Gingerdead Man franchise is the loser here as it gets absorbed into the Bong World.

'Axis Rising' was a disappointment

Puppet Master X: Axis Rising (2012)
Starring: Kip Canyon, Jean Louise O'Sullivan, Oto Brezina, Scott King, Stephanie Sanditz, and Brad Potts
Director: Charles Band
Producers: Charles Band,
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Two all-American kids, Beth and Danny (Canyon and O'Sullivan), and everyone's favorite homicidal dolls must stop Nazis (King and Sanditz) and their captive scientist (Brezina) from using Toulon's magic serum to create an army of super-soldiers.

Puppet Master X: Axis Rising" is a direct continuation of "Puppet Master: Axis of Evil" and it was yet another decline for Charles Band as a director and story-teller. The story is chaotic, the characters do things that make no sense except they have do or the plot stalls (this is especially true of Stephanie Sanditz big-boobed, sexy Nazi sadist), and there is literally not a single scene in the film that doesn't end up dragging because Band lets it go on too long.

 I THINK Band and his screen writer were attempting to make this movie feel like something that might have been made in the 1940s, with its pure-hearted heroes and utterly depraved and evil villains. This doesn't work because very little of the dialogue is snappy enough and the heroes so bland, and made more-so by the weak performances from  Kip Canyon and Jean Louise O'Sullivan. Of course, these characters were so bland to begin with that I didn't even realize the roles had been recast until I sat down to write this review. That might have been to the credit of the casting director... if the new Danny and Beth hadn't been so lame.

As uninteresting and bland as the heroes were in this film, the Nazi villains were all lots of fun, with Scott King, as Commandant Moebius, and Stephanie Sanditz, as his lieutenant and lover Uschi,  giving performances that were so over the top that I'm surprised their scenery-chewing didn't leave teeth marks in my television set. These actors and characters, along with the pathetic scientist played by Oto Brezina, go a long way to making the tough slog that this film is bearable and give it the somewhat strong finish that it has.

Aside from King and Sanditz, the only good thing I can say about "Puppet Master X" is that Band didn't leave us with yet more unresolved Puppet Master story threads (as happened with "Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge") or an unfinished reboot/prequel storyline (as happened with "Retro Puppet Master"). This film delivered on MOST of the implied promise made with the non-ending ending in "Puppet Master: Axis of Evil". I further appreciated the fact that it picked up on the mysticism thread that was introduced in "Retro Puppet Master". If the story-flow had been more finely crafted, I think I may have been more forgiving of the weak acting on the part of O'Sullivan and Canyon because of the effective callbacks to previous films in the series.

By now, I'm sure you've noticed that I've not talked about the killer puppets. That's because, while they are present, they don't do much and when they do, it's generally uninteresting. The animation/puppetry is a little better than it has been in recent installments, but overall they are mostly here just because they have to be. This includes the new Nazi puppet additions as well, with one notable exception and another that appears to have promise but ends up being lame in the end because of bad writing. (I can't go into exact details here without spoiling things.)

Over all, "Puppet Master X: Axis Rising" is a disappointment. If only Band had emulated B-movies like the best of Monogram Pictures instead of the worst of Producer's Releasing Corporation.