Paul Le Mat, Irene Miracle, Matt Roe, and Kathryn O'Reilly play psychics plotted against by a former colleague using Egyptian-spelled puppets.
Puppetmaster was originally slated for a summer 1989 theatrical release before a September home video release. However, Charles Band decided a direct-to-video release on October 12, 1989 would be more profitable.
It gained a cult following and became a franchise.
In the year 1939, André Toulon, an experienced puppeteer, may be seen at the Bodega Bay Inn in California putting the finishing touches on his most recent masterpiece, Jester.Kahn, another real puppet, warns the Nazi operatives to keep their distance as they enter the room and head toward Toulon's chamber.
Toulon carefully puts all of the live puppets in a chest and conceals it in a slot in a wall panel. Toulon commits suicide as the Nazis smash the door down.
Contact was made with Professor Alex Whitaker by Neil Gallagher in the form of a nightmare in which both Neil and leeches appeared. "Contact" was also made with Dana Hadley by means of an impending death premonition. "Contact" was made with Frank Forrester and Carissa Stamford by means of an unknown method. Dana has also discovered Toulon's "hiding location" and has informed the others, organizing a rendezvous at Neil's home, the Bodega Bay Inn. They are startled to discover that Neil not only has a wife, Megan, but that he has also committed suicide, leaving instructions for Megan to follow when the others arrive. After she leaves, a large pin is inserted into Neil's body to ensure that the victim is indeed dead.
As the psychics settle into their quarters, they start seeing visions of Neil that are both perplexing and disconcerting. As Dana and the rest of the family have dinner, a second animated doll, Pinhead, emerges from Neil's coffin after Dana purposely riles Megan.
Alex accompanies Megan and tells her about their past together. By touching an object, Carissa, a psychologist, can see its emotional past; Dana, a psychic who can find things and people; and Alex, a man who has the ability to glimpse the future in his dreams, can do the same.
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.
As a result of Neil's lack of communication with the group for some time, Dana and the others assumed that he had abandoned them and taken whatever Neil was searching for for himself, and they are now going to take it and settle the score.
That night, Pinhead attacks Theresa with a poker, fulfilling Dana's fate.
Megan faints after seeing Gallagher's corpse on a chair; Alex helps her as the others return it to the coffin. Alex and Dana's rooms have been found to be protected by spells, so Blade goes on to Carissa and Frank's, where they are having a very noisy sex session that is disturbing Alex and Dana. Underground and Leech Woman arrive as a third puppet. Upon investigating the commotion coming from beneath the bed, Carissa is fatally drilled by Tunneler, and Leech Woman regurgitates leeches onto Frank, who is bound to the bed and drained of blood. Gallagher's corpse is found by Dana in her room when she returns from a stroll; Pinhead attacks and fractures her leg as a result.
She eventually succeeds in kicking Pinhead off of her and making it to the elevator, where she is ambushed by Blade, who ultimately fulfills the prophesy that was given to her by slitting her throat with his blade. Alex has further nightmares and is ultimately awoken by Megan, who gives him Toulon's notebook and informs him that Neil has discovered Toulon's reanimation secret. Alex sees Neil and rushes downstairs to flee, but they discover Dana, Frank, and Carissa's dead seated around the dining table, followed by the freshly revived Neil. Despite committing suicide, he exploited Toulon's techniques to reanimate himself and become immortal. He admits to having murdered Megan's parents and shows his contempt for the puppets by brutally discarding Jester. He is now content to have human puppets with whom to experiment. After seeing what happened, the other puppets converge on Neil and begin to attack him. Tunneler removes Neil's legs, and Blade holds him down as Leech Woman regurgitates a leech into his mouth. Finally, Pinhead snaps Neil's neck. The next day, Megan bids farewell to Alex, and as she makes her way up the stairs, she gives life to Dana's pet dog, Leroy.
Puppet Master's cast was exceptional. André Toulon was portrayed by William Hickey.
Alex Whitaker, the film's primary protagonist and a professor of anthropology at Yale University who has the capacity to dream of events that have not yet occurred, was represented by Paul Le Mat in the film. Dana Hadley, played by Irene Miracle, is a small-time carnival psychic who specializes in fortune reading and finding lost or misplaced items.
Jimmie F. Skaggs played Neil Gallagher, the film's major antagonist and Puppetmaster (1989) who kills his former friends and coworkers using puppets. Megan Gallagher, Neil's wife, inherited the Bodega Bay from her parents and met Neil there. Frank Forrester, a psychic researcher with Pensa Research Inc (PRI) and Carissa's partner, was played by actor Matt Roe. They specialize in sexual psychic readings. Carissa Stamford, portrayed by Kathryn O'Reilly, is a psychometrist with Pensa Research Inc (PRI) and Frank's partner. She often gets visions of former sexual trauma victims or romantic couples, but can reconstruct the emotional history of any item by touch.Theresa Mews Small worked for the Gallaghers as the family's housekeeper. Barbara Crampton gave the performance of a lady who worked at 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. On June 13, 2000, Full Moon Home Video was the first video retailer to offer the movie in DVD format.
Wizard Entertainment published The Puppet Master (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 Puppetmaster (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 a Blu-ray and a limited-edition vintage VHS compilation, with the first 300 autographed by Band.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a 4/10 average rating based on seven reviews, which means that only 43% of people liked it. TV Guide slammed it as "a useless variant on the killer-doll theme" in its review. The mood, music, and set design were praised, but the performances, poor writing, and first act were slammed.
Puppet Master 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.
Despite its flaws, Wes from another website claims that Puppetmaster is one of the most enjoyable "killer toy" horror films.
The popularity of the movie inside a subculture served as the impetus for the creation of a series that would last for decades. The film was so successful that it spawned a total of five sequels: Puppet Master (1989) II (1990), Puppet Master 4 (1993), Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter (1994), and Curse of the Puppet Master (1998). (2003).
Toulon's Revenge (1991), like Retro Puppetmaster (1989), acts as a prequel (1999). After Puppetmaster: Axis of Evil (2010) and Axis Rising (2012) and Axis Termination (2013), a loose prequel trilogy has begun (2017). odahsrecked
Blade: The Iron Cross, a spin-off centering on the puppet Blade, was published in 2020. In 2022, another film, this time about Doktor Death (from Retro), will be released.
In 2004, the Sci-Fi Channel presented Puppetmaster (1989) vs. Demonic Toys, a crossover with fellow Full Moon series Demonic Toys.
Full Moon announced a collaboration with indie gaming firm "October Games" Puppet Master (1989) review in September 2021 in order to release an official Puppet Master (1989) game on the Steam store by the end of 2022. In March 2009, Band announced a 3-D remake of the original film. Fascinating facts about the Puppetmaster (1989)
Pinhead's hands in the punching sequences are really the fists of dwarf stuntwoman Cindy Sorensen, who had to wear the same fingerless gloves and sweater sleeve to make it seem like it was Pinhead's fist.
Cindy said that the most challenging aspect of these sequences was keeping her head down while holding the Pinhead puppet on her shoulders and while throwing fake blows.
When Leech Woman "coughs" up a leech, her mouth is composed of foam latex, making it look more flexible.
In spite of the fact that only three quarters of the leech mechanism are visible, a straightforward camera cut gives the appearance that a whole leech erupts out of Leech Woman's mouth. This is despite the fact that only those three quarters are visible. Miniature: The Bodega Bay motel resembled a refrigerator in size. As soon as filmmakers had chosen a suitable setting, they employed force perspective to make their model hotel look as though it were standing in the real world. Five puppeteers operated Blade. Dolls, an earlier Charles Band production about lethal toys, served as inspiration for the film (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 Puppetmaster (1989), 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 record a director's commentary for it. He also said that Charles Band owed him residuals during the same interview.
The puppet Blade is modeled on Klaus Kinski, one of David Schmoeller's favorite performers. One of the first puppets shown by Charles Band was a six-armed Ninja with firearms. This puppet did not appear in the film, but it inspired the puppet Six-Shooter, who makes his debut in Puppetmaster III: Toulon's Revenge (1991).
Originally scheduled to be released in theaters in the summer of 1989 and on home video in September 1989, it was pushed back to October 12, 1989 as a direct-to-video release after producer Charles Band stated in an interview that he would make more money in the DTV market than in the theatrical market.
In 2010, the original film's creator Band planned to recreate it. Due to opposition, the project was shelved, and Puppetmaster (1989) Axis of Evil was born in its place.
The soundtrack for this film is mostly made up of synthesizer versions of Pino Donaggio's music from The Tourist Trap (1979), a film with similar themes on which director David Schmoeller and producer Band previously collaborated. Charles Band says that he got the idea for the title Puppet Master (1989) 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 decided to develop a film on live puppets, he recalled how much great feedback he had gotten from The Dungeonmaster, which he had always been captivated with. After that, he just chose the title Puppetmaster (1989) for the film. Blade is the only character whose outfit does not vary between films.
Blade is the sole puppet to have featured on the Puppetmaster (1989) Movies' VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray covers.
The puppet Blade, who lacks lungs and other internal organs, exhales forcefully and sounds out of breath while sprinting at the opening of the film.
Furthermore, other puppets may be heard panting, groaning, and moaning throughout the picture. Despite this, none of them is able to communicate.