Puppet Master

Puppetmaster (1989) (also spelled The Puppetmaster (1989) and Puppet Master) is a 1989 horror film directed by David Schmoeller and written by Charles Band and Kenneth J. Hall. Paul Le Mat, Irene Miracle, Matt Roe, and Kathryn O'Reilly feature in the film as psychics who are plotted against by a former colleague using puppets controlled by an Egyptian curse.

Puppet Master (1989) was supposed to come out in theaters in the summer of 1989 and then on home video the following September. However, Charles Band decided that a direct-to-video release on October 12, 1989 was more likely to make money than a theatrical release. It was a huge hit, and it spawned a franchise and a cult following.

André Toulon is putting the final touches on his new puppet, Jester, in 1939 at Bodega Bay Inn, California. Nazi spies arrive and make their way to Toulon's room, while Kahn, another real puppet, warns him to stay away. Toulon stores all of the alive puppets in a chest that is then stowed away in a secret room behind one of the wall panels. As the Nazis begin to break down the door, Toulon pulls the trigger on his own suicide. Professor Alex Whitaker was "contacted" by Neil Gallagher in a nightmare in which Neil and leeches appeared, Dana Hadley was "contacted" through an impending death premonition, and Frank Forrester and Carissa Stamford were "contacted" by an unknown method.

Neil lives at the Bodega Bay Inn where Dana has found Toulon's "hiding spot," so they plan a rendezvous there.

They arrive to discover Neil has a wife, Megan, and has murdered himself, leaving instructions for her.

She leaves them with the body so they can pay their respects, and Dana stabs a long pin into Neil's torso to make sure he's dead.

The psychics get several conflicting images of Neil as they retire into their quarters. Dana purposefully riles Megan, leading her to leave the table, and Pinhead, another animated doll, climbs out of Neil's grave that night.

Megan is accompanied by Alex, and he shares with her some of their history together. It is possible for Carissa, a psychologist, Dana, a clairvoyant who can discover objects and people, and Alex, a guy who has the power to view the future in his dreams, to perceive the emotional history of an item just by touching it.

The last real alchemist of his day, André Toulon, also found a means of reanimating lifeless figurines when Neil was studying alchemy with Frank's guidance.

But, since Neil hadn't contacted them in a long time, Dana and the others assumed he'd abandoned them and taken whatever he was searching for for himself, and they're now coming to take it and settle the score. The housekeeper, Theresa, is attacked with a poker by Pinhead while tending to the fire that night, completing Dana's destiny.

Megan passes out as a consequence of Alex's care for her as the others place Gallagher back in the coffin. In the meanwhile, the others return Gallagher to the casket.

After Blade finds protective spells in Alex and Dana's rooms, he goes to Carissa and Frank's, where they are having very loud sex and keeping Alex and Dana from sleeping. Tunneler and Leech Woman, two more puppets, walk in.

Tunneler murders Carissa by drilling into her face when she investigates a disturbance coming from beneath the bed, while Leech Woman drains Frank's blood by regurgitating leeches onto him while he is chained to the bed. Dana discovers Gallagher's corpse in her room after returning from a stroll, and she is then assaulted by Pinhead, who fractures her leg.

She eventually kicks Pinhead off of her and makes her way to the elevator, where she is assaulted by Blade, who slices off her neck, thereby fulfilling the prophesy she was told.

Alex is roused from his dreams by Megan, who then reveals to him that Toulon's notebook is in her possession and tells him that Neil has uncovered Toulon's secret to reanimation.

Alex notices Neil in their attempt to run, and they come to find Dana, Frank, and Carissa's bodies clustered around a dining room table with the just resurrected Neil.

He says that, although he did commit himself, he utilized Toulon's secrets to resurrect himself and become immortal. He says he murdered Megan's parents and displays hatred for the puppets, forcefully discarding Jester. Tunneler cuts off Neil's legs, Blade holds him down, Leech Woman regurgitates a leech into his mouth, and Pinhead breaks his neck. The following day, Megan sees Alex off and brings Dana's pet dog Leroy to life.

Puppet Master's cast was impressive. André Toulon was portrayed by William Hickey. Paul Le Mat played Alex Whitaker, the protagonist of the film, an anthropology professor at Yale University who is able to see into the future and see what may be.

Dana Hadley, the character that Irene Miracle portrays, is a small-time carnival psychic who specializes in fortune telling and retrieving lost or missing items.

Neil Gallagher, the film's antagonist and namesake Puppet Master (1989), is responsible for the killings of many of the Puppet Master (1989) movie review film's former colleagues and friends at the hands of the live-action puppets, as performed by Jimmie F. Skaggs.

Her parents owned and maintained the Bodega Bay in which she and Neil first met and which she inherited when they died. Actress Robin Frates portrayed Megan Gallagher. Frank Forrester was played by actor Matt Roe. He was a psychic researcher for Pensa Research Inc. (PRI) and Carissa's partner. Together, they were experts in sexual psychic readings.

Carissa Stamford, a clairvoyant who regularly sees former sexual trauma victims or couples having sex and can recreate the emotional history of any object by touch, was played by Kathryn O'Reilly, a psychometrist at Pensa Research Inc (PRI) and Frank's partner.

Theresa, this is Mews Small, who used to work as a cleaner for the Gallaghers. Barbara Crampton had a part in the carnival.

Blade, Jester, Pinhead, Tunneler, Leech Woman, Shredder Khan, and Gengie are the names of the puppets that are responsible for the murders.

Paramount Home Video released Puppetmaster (1989) on VHS on September 30, 1989.

Full Moon Home Video released the film's first DVD on June 13, 2000. Wizard Entertainment published The Puppetmaster (1989) in March 2008, followed by a Blu-ray release in July 2010. A remastered DVD was also published by Full Moon Features at the same time.

Although Echo Bridge Home Entertainment released "Killjoy and Puppet Master (1989): The Complete Collections" in 2014 with the Killjoy series, both series have subsequently spawned additional installments in their own ongoing storylines since then.

On April 10, 2018, Full Moon released both a Blu-ray and a limited-edition vintage VHS compilation, with the latter limited to 3,000 copies with Band signing and numbering the first 300. The film has a weighted average rating of 4/10 on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 43 percent acceptance rating based on seven reviews. It was described negatively by TV Guide as "a useless take on the killer-doll theme."

A website gave it a 3/5, praising the atmosphere, music, and set design but criticizing the acting, the weak script, and the first act. Puppet Master (1989) isn't what I would call a terrific picture, but its heart is in the right place, and I've always been a tremendous fan of the evil doll subgenre of horror, which makes the film's inadequacies readily tolerable, according to the conclusion of the review. According to Wes, who writes on a different website, Puppet Master is, despite its flaws, one of the most entertaining films in the "killer toy" subgenre of horror movies.

The film's status as a cult classic sparked a series that would last for decades. Puppet Master II (1990), Puppetmaster (1989) 4 (1993), Puppetmaster 5: The Final Chapter (1994), Curse of the Puppetmaster (1998), and Puppetmaster: The Legacy (2000) were the five sequels (2003). The third movie, Toulon's Revenge (1991), and Retro Puppet Master (1989) are both prequels (1999). Puppet Master: Axis of Evil came out in 2010, and then Axis Rising (2012) and Axis Termination (2014) came out (2017). odahsrecked Blade: The Iron Cross, a spin-off starring the puppet Blade, premiered in 2020. Another film, Doktor Death (from Retro), will be released in 2022.

It was a crossover between Puppet Master (1989) and Demonic Toys, and it first broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel in the year 2004.

In September of 2021, Full Moon made the announcement that they will be releasing an official Puppetmaster (1989) video game in collaboration with the independent gaming company known as October Games. The game is expected to be available for purchase on the Steam platform sometime before the end of 2022. Band was said to be making a 3-D remake of the original film in March 2009. Puppetmaster (1989) trivia

In the film's hitting sequences, dwarf stuntwoman Cindy Sorensen donned fingerless gloves and a sweater sleeve to simulate Pinhead's hands, but it was her fists that were utilized. Cindy said that the hardest part was keeping her head down while holding the Pinhead puppet on her shoulders and throwing fake punches at the same time.

Leech Woman's mouth is composed of foam latex, which gives the impression that she is more flexible as she "coughs" up a leech.

Only three quarters of the leech mechanism come out of the puppet, but a simple camera cut makes it look like the whole leech comes out of Leech Woman's mouth. The motel at Bodega Bay was a small, being about the size of a refrigerator. When the filmmakers located the ideal site, they suspended the model in the air and employed force perspective to make the hotel seem to be there.

Five puppeteers operated Blade.

The movie was based on Dolls, an earlier film by Band about toys that kill (1986). In a 1999 interview with horror website The Terror Trap, film director David Schmoeller said that he was not interested in continuing Full Moon's most successful series, the Puppet Master, since it would have revealed someone other than Full Moon CEO Charles Band as its inventor.

When the first "Puppet Master (1989)" film was released on DVD, Schmoeller was never invited to offer a director's commentary. He also said in the same interview that Charles Band owed him residuals.

Klaus Kinski, one of David Schmoeller's favorites, is the inspiration for the puppet Blade.

A six-armed Ninja with firearms was one of Charles Band's early puppets. Although this puppet did not appear in the film, it served as inspiration for the puppet Six-Shooter, who first appeared in Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991).

Originally scheduled to hit cinemas in the summer of 1989 and home video in September, the film was moved back to October 12, 1989 as a direct-to-video release after producer Charles Band indicated in an interview that he would earn more money in the DTV market than he would in the theatrical market. The director of the first movie, Band, was going to remake the movie in 2010, according to the original idea. The concept was scrapped as a result of the bad response, and the Puppetmaster (1989) Axis of Evil strategy was developed in its place.

The Tourist Trap (1979), a film with similar themes on which director David Schmoeller and producer Charles Band previously collaborated, provided the bulk of the soundtrack for this film, which is mostly synthesized versions of Pino Donaggio's music.

Charles Band says that he got the idea for the title Puppetmaster from his early days working for Empire Pictures. In 1984, he worked on a movie called The Dungeonmaster (also known as Ragewar). He said that many fans told him they loved that title. When he chose to do a film using live puppets, he remembered how much positive response he had received from The Dungeonmaster, which he had always admired. After that, he just chose the title Puppetmaster (1989) for the film.

In all of the films, Blade is the only one whose outfit doesn't alter. Blade is the sole puppet to feature on the Puppetmaster (1989) Movies' VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray covers.

Despite the fact that the puppet Blade lacks lungs (or any other internal organs), he breathes hard and sounds out of breath while sprinting at the start of the film.

Other puppets may also be heard panting, groaning, and moaning throughout the movie. Despite this, none of them are able to communicate effectively.