Curse of the Puppet Master was a massive letdown for many of Full Moon’s established fans, and Band knew this. He knew he had to think of something to get the fans back, so he decided to go back. Looking over the initial art from the first film in 1988, he noticed some puppets that they didn’t use. Charles Band decided to use these puppets and craft a prequel that explored Andre Toulon’s origins pre-WWII. Like many of Full Moon’s films at the time, shooting would be in Romania at Castel Film Studios. David DeCoteau, under the pseudonym Joseph Tennent, was hired to direct after directing two entries, including Puppet Master III. For the role of young Andre Toulon, the filmmakers cast a then-unknown Greg Sestero after considering James Franco. A few months after the last film, Full Moon released Retro Puppet Master in November of 1999.
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Synopsis
In 1902 Paris, Andre Toulon (Greg Sestero) is running a puppet show called “Theater Magique,” which is quite popular. After a performance of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Toulon meets Elsa (Brigitta Dau), a young socialite wanting to see the country. The two start to hit it off until a man who’s nearly beaten to death arrives looking for help. The stranger is Afzel (Jack Donner), an Egyptian sorcerer who’s stolen the secret of life from the god Sutekh. He passes his knowledge along to Toulon, allowing him to bring life to his puppets with human souls. Meanwhile, Sutekh sends three of his mummified followers to track down Afzel and kill him before passing his knowledge on. Before long, Toulon assembles a puppet army to take on Sutekh’s forces while falling in love with Elsa. An elder Toulon (Guy Rolfe) in 1944 Switzerland shares this story with his puppets.
Review
Retro Puppet Master is a slight improvement compared to the last installment, but not by a whole lot. The Romanian filming locations add plenty of production value and make the film look more expensive. Also, introducing the new retro puppets is an excellent way to keep things fresh and exciting. It’s interesting to see what Blade, Pinhead, and Six Shooter looked like before getting a new design. Admittedly, the film plays with the continuity from the other movies, but this series never had a consistent continuity. Even though he hardly resembles Guy Rolfe, Greg Sestero does a decent job playing a young Andre Toulon. He also deserves some credit for adding a French accent considering the character’s name, even if it doesn’t match Rolfe. Speaking of, while he’s only on-screen for a few minutes, Guy Rolfe does an excellent job for his final role.
Brigitta Dau, known chiefly for doing voiceovers for Ranma 1/2, has decent chemistry with Sestero and is quite lovely. The late character actor Jack Donner gives the role of Afzel more dignity than it otherwise deserves. Another notable actor is Stephen Blackehart, who was previously in Tromeo & Juliet and later became a James Gunn regular. In terms of his direction, David DeCoteau does a decent job and takes advantage of the Romanian locations. Like the last film, the lack of stop-motion animation is unfortunate, but the puppets have more screen time here. The puppet effects are decent, though there are quite a few moments where you can see the strings. Sadly, for all the improvements made here, the series would continue to go further downhill from where it started. Overall, Retro Puppet Master does some things right but does plenty more wrong.
Buy Retro Puppet Master from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2ZMP3uv
