Puppet Master: Axis of Evil (2010)

PUPPET MASTER: AXIS OF EVIL

WRITER: August White

DIRECTOR: David DeCoteau

STARRING: Levi Fiehler as Danny Coogan

Jenna Gallaher as Beth

Taylor M. Graham as Don

Tom Sandoval as Ben/Max

Jerry Hoffman as Uncle Len

Erica Shaffer as Elma Coogan

Ada Zhou Fang as Ozu

QUICK CUT: Amidst the rise of Word War II, a young man struggles to find his place in the world, and contribute to the war effort. With the help of some new friends, he just might find his purpose.

THE MORGUE

Danny - Like many young men of the time, Danny just wants to do good and serve his country and help the war effort. But thanks to polio injuring his leg, he’s unable to serve, and this haunts him.

Beth - Danny’s kindasorta girlfriend, who works at the local munitions plant. She’s bubbly, trusting, and loyal.

Ben - A new worker at the plant, who is sweet on Beth, and oh yeah, he’s a Nazi.

Ozu - A Japanese woman running the local Nazi efforts in the area, and not very trusting of her new German allies in town.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Happy New Year, Triskelions! Since I didn't do it for the 400th review, I decided rather than jumping into another Friday the 13th movie, I would tackle that next Puppet Master with Axis of Evil. I bought this sucker new, in the Toulon Trunk packahing it and the remastered original Puppet Master they put out at the time. Long time readers will remember I did a special look at the difference between the original PM dvd and the remastered, so yeah, this is a good way to kick off the new year, and the next? 400 reviews.

We start right out at our old favourite getaway, the Bodega Bay Inn, back in 1939. We meet young carpenter Danny, and his Uncle Len, working around the basement, which to my memory does indeed look a LOT like the basement set from the awful PM Legacy movie.

As was the fashion at the time, Danny laments how, because of his polio ravaged leg, he can't go off to fight the Germans like all good Americans. Uncle Len reminds him that with great power comes great responsibility, and lets him know that he's doing his own great work here at home.

Which is when we get a Toulon name drop, and even more than that, we get a LOT of reused footage from the original movie, reliving William Hickey's Toulon committing suicide so the Germans can't take his puppets, as well as lot of footage of Blade nyooming around.

And this is why we don’t blindly matte down 16:9 footage

Danny hears the shot, and sees the Germans as they leave. He quickly recovers Toulon's trunk from its hiding spot…a hiding spot that was good enough for the Germans to miss as they ransacked the room, but not some rando kid stumbling in moments after.

Also, just a brief mention of a weird moment where Hickey picks up Blade, and he has some dialogue, but it's muted for some reason. Probably some sort of rights/money issues with the estate, but it's still so strange to see.

Once he claims the trunk, Danny heads home and we meet his mom, and brother Don, who will be shipping out for the war shortly.

Dan shows Don the puppets and tells him what he can, and I do like that Don finds a drawer with pieces of Six Shooter, in need of repairs. It's a good way to patch over the weird continuity thanks to the movies jumping around everywhere, and why he's not here.

Meanwhile, the Nazis make contact with a Japanese woman done up as a Geisha, who seems to be in charge of the local Axis chapter. The Nazis aren't too happy with this for multiple reasons, but the two groups decide to work together anyways.

Back with Danny, he's still checking out the puppets, trying to see what makes their clockworks tick, and he discovers the tiny holes at the back of their necks. Before he can continue to stumble miraculously upon their secret, he remembers he has a lunch date with his wannabe girlfriend, Beth.

This is my brother Daryl and my other brother Daryl.

She works at a munitions factory, largely responsible for making bombs. You know, like Puppet Master 4, Puppet Master 5, Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys… Danny has a confrontation with the foreman, catching more shit about not doing anything in the war effort, and he rushes home to play with his dolls.

As he stomps around in his anger, he kicks the trunk, a panel falls open,in which he finds a new ninja style puppet, and the glowing green ooze.

Danny quickly puts together that the injector fits perfectly in the puppets' neck holes, and y'know, for a secret that is core to a lot of the motivations across this series, it sure seems pretty easy to figure out.

You too can bring home your own Junior ReAnimator kit today!

He takes Jester and others to show off the now living puppets to Beth, and he sees her talking with the new guy at the plant making moves on her. Who just so happens to be one of the Nazis he saw leaving Toulon's room.

Danny asks who it was, and tries to explain he's a Nazi, but Beth insists he's just Ben. "His name isn't Ben, he's a Nazi!" And um, Nazis can't be named Ben?

So he follows Ben to the opera house the Nazis are hiding out in, and I gotta say, I do love the symmetry to Retro Puppet Master with Toulon's work beginning in a theatre.

Yessss, use your murderous puppets to slay the man woo your girlfriend away...er, I mean, to kill that filthy Nazi.

We learn that Ben has been gathering intel to sabotage the plant, and has stolen plans to plant some bombs, and it will take out the American's 'secret ingredient' that would increase their bombs' yeild. Uhhh, are they talking nuclear? Can you imagine if they accidentally succeeded in bombig a place making nukes?

Also, this is the first time we really get to see the puppets doing anything, and I gotta be honest; the puppetry in this movie isn't that much better than Legacy, being little more than someone off camera holding a stationary puppet and turning it to react, but it is handled WAY better here. And to be fair, they are a little more active. A little.

Pinhead steals a chunk of blueprints, and Blade gets stabbity with a few Nazis, and they both manage to escape. Ozu both takes this in stride, and seems incredulous at the same time.

40 minutes into Puppet Master and chill, and she gives you this look.

Beth turns up the next day, and Don shows her the blueprints, and explains where and how he got them. Surprisingly, she actually believes him.

He says he's going to head back to the opera house to get some pictures so someone might believe him, and not to worry, he has help.

Beth meets the puppets, and is shocked, of course, wondering how are they moving?? A line that would carry more weight if they were doing anything more than the barest of wiggling arms.

Meanwhile, Ben thinks they need to take care of Danny in case he knows anything, and they crash Don's going away party while Danny's away. They kidnap Beth, and leave his mom and brother for dead.

Danny returns home to the sight of his dead family, and uses his knowledge of Toulon to put his brother into the ninja puppet ...have I mentioned how very quickly he figures all this out?

I do also question why these Nazis, whose sole motivation for this entire movie has been 'get ze puppets' did not look for them, take them, or even the secret of Toulon. Feels like a major oversight.

At the opera house, Ozu's minions get a little fresh with Beth, and Ben actually protects her, seeing no need to manhandle or disrespect her, but Ozu insists she's nothing but bait, just a worm, on a big fuckin’ hook.

So the attack of the puppets finally begins, as Danny and friends sneak in. First up is Leech Woman hacking up her own worm into a Japanese goon's sushi, which he blithely eats.

He is soon found by the other Japanese goon, who very quickly runs afoul of Pinhead and Tunneler.

The screams get the attention of the others, and as they start looking for Danny, the Donja frees Beth from her ropes.

Before her guard can stop her, Donja flings a throwing star, getting him right in the eye.

Danny and Beth run off and hide while Ben and Ozu find the dead Nazi, one step behind their murderers.

When the star hits your eye from a puppety guy, that's a ninja!

Ozu finds them first, and again, Donja saves the day. He doesn't kill Ozu, and takes a sword to his wooden chest, but it gives Dan and Beth time to run.

Amidst all this, the bag with the puppets gets left behind, and Ben acquires it and runs. Which begs the question why, after so many movies of these puppets dealing with threats, are they just kinda chilling and not fighting back?

Ozu continues to confront the duo, and Blade shows up with the bomb Ben was going to use, perfectly willing to use it themselves to stop the plot

Ben comes out of nowhere and snatches up the bomb however. Which, despite my above complaint, is kind of a treat to see. They ARE just dolls at the end of the day.

He then uses his gun to threaten Ozu, their alliance dissolved now that he has everything, and then, oops, Donja stabs the Nazi in the back with a sword.

I have nothing funny to say here. The image itself is hilarious enough on its own.

During the shock of all that, Ozu grabs the dropped bag of puppets and absconds with them into the night...setting up the conflict for the next movie.

At least this feels more complete than the whole 4/5 fiasco, which really did feel like one movie chopped in half.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It’s got a weird, grey, washed out quality to it, which might be trying to deliberately give it a look of old age, set a feeling, but it just looks weird and grey to me. But aside from a weird contrast balance, it looks solid

Audio: Perfectly good audio.

Body Count: Not too shabby.

1 - Nine minutes in, and reused footage kills Toulon again.

2 - Klaus shoots Mrs. Coogan

3 - Don also gets shot off screen

4 - One of the Japanese soldiers eats one of Leech Woman's friends

5 - Another one gets the wrong end of Tunneler.

6 - A German soldier gets a throwing star to the face from Donja

7 - Ben gets backstabbed by Donja

Best Corpse: A lot of the death happens off to the side, so I have to go with the German who takes the star to the eye, and then gets his face crushed by Pinhead.

Blood Type - C: It’s not bad, they do show some blood after the fact, and they do give some good splats with Toulon’s suicide, but it is a bit lacking.

Drink Up! every time Danny feels bad about not being able to go to war.

Movie Review: I gotta say, after the last few duds, this was a refreshing return to form. It’s not GREAT, but I do genuinely like the story. It sets up the next movie too much, but does at least feel like a whole story, more or less. The acting isn’t bad, it’s well shot, and it’s probably the best Puppet Master since…3? Maybe Curse, which had it’s moments? The production values are a little better than the last few as well, although the Puppetry is still lacking. The lack of blood is a bummer, but not a deal breaker. This movie doesn’t quite hit a home run, but it is competent, and a big step in the right direction. It’s biggest problem is definitely that they just can’t do as much puppet work behind the scenes with limited resources, so the movie spends a lot of time talking and setting up, before getting to the big ideas. But, it does manage to work within those limitations just well enough. Oh, and there’s quite a bit of racism, which is fine and expected from the Nazis, and you could argue the way Japanese and Germans were treated with prejudice was just a sign of the times, but it does lean towards uncomfortable in this day and age. Not bad, but something to be aware of going in. A very solid three out of five throwing stars.

Entertainment Value: I wish there was a bit more here. There aren’t any wild kills, the puppets are lacking, and the acting lands right in the serviceable but not bad category. It’s a perfectly okay story with a solid foundation, but there’s not too much here that other movies don’t do better. Two out of five plates of sushi.