Puppetmaster (1989) 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 as psychics who are targeted by a former colleague, who uses puppets powered by an Egyptian spell.In the end, Band came to the conclusion that a direct-to-video release of Puppetmaster on October 12th, 1989, would be more financially successful than a theatrical release of the film. Puppet Master (1989) was originally scheduled for distribution in theaters during the summer of 1989, before it was released on home video in September of that same year.
It was very successful and has since gained a substantial cult following and franchise status. In 1939, legendary puppeteer André Toulon is finishing up his newest invention, Jester, at the Bodega Bay Inn in California. Kahn, another real puppet, warns the Nazi operatives to keep their distance as they enter the room and head toward Toulon's chamber. 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. Neil Gallagher "contacted" Professor Alex Whitaker in a nightmare in which Neil and leeches appeared, Dana Hadley was "contacted" by an approaching death premonition, and Frank Forrester and Carissa Stamford were "contacted" by an unknown technique.
Dana has also discovered Toulon's "hiding spot" and has informed the others, setting up a rendezvous at Neil's home, the Bodega Bay Inn. When they get there, they are surprised to find that Neil not only has a wife named Megan, but that he also killed himself and left instructions for Megan for when the others get there.
Dana stabs a long pin into Neil's corpse to check that he is really dead, and she leaves them with the body to pay their respects.
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 follows Megan and tells her about what happened between them and her husband. Carissa, who is a psychometrist, can see the emotional history of any object just by touching it. Dana can tell fortunes and find things and people, and Alex can see the future in his dreams.
With Frank's aid, Neil found that Ancient Egyptians could reanimate lifeless statues, a skill previously revealed by the last genuine alchemist, André Toulon.
But Neil hadn't talked to them in a while, so Dana and the others thought he had left them and taken whatever he was looking for for himself. They are there to take it and make up for it. That night, Theresa, the housekeeper, goes to put out a fire. Pinhead attacks her with a poker, which makes Dana's wish come true.
Meanwhile, Alex tends to Megan as the others return Gallagher to the coffin; as a consequence, she faints.
Blade walks on to Carissa and Frank's rooms after finding defensive charms on Alex and Dana's chambers, where they are having extremely noisy sex and upsetting Alex and Dana's sleep. Tunneler and Leech Woman, two additional puppets, show up.
When Carissa investigates a commotion coming from beneath the bed, Tunneler murders her by drilling into her face, while Leech Woman regurgitates leeches onto Frank, who is bound to the bed, draining his blood. When Dana returns from her stroll, she discovers Gallagher's corpse in her room and is attacked by Pinhead, who fractures her leg. Pinhead pursues her, strangling and punching her until she manages to kick him off and crawl to the elevator, only to have her neck sliced by Blade, completing her fate. Megan jolts Alex up from his slumber by displaying him Toulon's notepad and informs him that Neil has figured out Toulon's reanimation formula.
Alex sees Neil and rushes downstairs to flee, only to discover Dana, Frank, and Carissa's corpses seated around the dining table, followed by the freshly revived Neil. He adds that, although he did commit himself, he utilized Toulon's secrets to resurrect himself in order to achieve immortality.
He says that he killed Megan's parents and is disgusted by the puppets. He then violently throws Jester, happy to have Megan's parents as human puppets to play with. Neil's other puppets see this and attack him. Tunneler cuts off Neil's legs, and Blade holds him down while Leech Woman spits a leech into his mouth. Finally, Pinhead breaks Neil's neck. The next day, Megan sees Alex off, and as she goes up the stairs, she gives Dana's stuffed dog Leroy life. The cast of Puppetmaster (1989) was outstanding. William Hickey as André Toulon in the film. Alex Whitaker, the film's protagonist, is an anthropology professor at Yale University who can look into the future and see what could be. Dana Hadley, played by Irene Miracle, is a carnival psychic who specializes in fortune reading and finding lost or misplaced items.
Neil Gallagher, the film's major antagonist, is played by actor Jimmie F. Skaggs, who plays the eponymous Puppet Master, who orchestrates the killings of his former friends and coworkers at the hands of the lifelike puppets.
Megan Gallagher, Neil's wife, inherited the Bodega Bay from her parents and met Neil there. Matt Roe portrayed Frank Forrester, a psychic researcher at Pensa Research Inc (PRI) and Carissa's partner; the pair specializes 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 from prior sexual trauma victims or couples in intimate relationships, but can reconstruct the emotional history of any item by touch. Theresa, this is Mews Small, a housekeeper for the Gallaghers. Barbara Crampton had a part in the carnival. Blade, Jester, Pinhead, Tunneler, Leech Woman, Shredder Khan, and Gengie are the killer puppets' names.
The VHS version of Puppet Master (1989) was made available for purchase by Paramount Home Video on September 30th, 1989. The film was initially released on DVD by Full Moon Home Video on June 13, 2000. Following a March 2008 release by Wizard Entertainment under the title The Puppet Master, Wizard released a Blu-ray in July 2010. Full Moon Features also issued a remastered DVD at the same time.
Echo Bridge Home Entertainment published "Killjoy and Puppet Master: The Complete Collections" with the Killjoy series in 2014. On April 10, 2018, Full Moon released a Blu-ray and a limited-edition vintage VHS compilation, with the first 300 autographed by Charles Band. The film has a 43 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on seven reviews, with a weighted average rating of 4/10. In its review, TV Guide called it "a worthless twist on the killer-doll motif."
A website gave the film a 3/5 rating, praising the mood, music, and set designs but criticizing the performances, narrative, and opening act. The review ended, "Puppet Master (1989) isn't a terrific picture, but its heart is in the right place, and I've always been a major fan of the evil doll subgenre of horror, making the film's flaws fairly acceptable."
Despite its limitations, Puppet Master emerges as one of the more pleasant of the 'killer toy' type horror flicks, according to Wes of another website. Following its success, the film's cult reputation generated a multi-decade sequel series. Puppet Master (1989) II was released in 1990, followed by Puppetmaster (1989) 4 in 1993, Puppet Master (1989) 5 in 1994, and Puppetmaster: The Legacy in 1998. (2003).
The third picture, Toulon's Revenge (1991), functions as a prequel, as does Retro Puppetmaster (1999). A loose prequel trilogy begins with Puppetmaster: Axis of Evil (2010), followed by Axis Rising (2012) and Axis Termination (2013). (2017). odahsreckedBlade: The Iron Cross is a spin-off that focuses on the puppet Blade and was released in the year 2020. Another movie, this one centered on Doktor Death, is scheduled to be released in 2022 according to the current plans (from Retro). It aired as a crossover between Puppet Master and Demonic Toys on the Sci-Fi Channel in 2004. Full Moon established a cooperation with 'October Games' to develop an official Puppet Master (1989) game on Steam in late 2022.
It was reported in March 2009 that Charles Band planned to recreate the original picture in 3-D.
Interesting information about the Puppet Master
Pinhead's fists in the punching sequences are really those of dwarf stunt woman Cindy Sorensen, who had to wear the same fingerless gloves and sweater sleeve to make it seem like it was Pinhead's fist.
Cindy had a difficult obstacle when she was required to keep her head down the whole time while also holding the Pinhead puppet on her shoulders and throwing fake punches at the same time. When Leech Woman "coughs" up a leech, her mouth is constructed of foam latex, which makes the mouth look more flexible.
Only three-quarters of the leech mechanism emerges from the puppet, and a simple camera cut gives the impression that a complete leech emerges from 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 were needed to control the Blade puppet. The previous film by Charles Band Puppetmaster horror movie review titled Dolls, which was about murderous toys, served as the film's inspiration (1986). In an interview conducted in 1999 by the horror movie website The Terror Trap, director David Schmoeller revealed the reason he was not involved with the rest of the Puppetmaster series, other than receiving a character credit, was because he feared it would reveal that someone other than Full Moon CEO Charles Band was responsible for the creation of Full Moon's most successful franchise. In the interview, Schmoeller made the admission. When the first "Puppet Master (1989)" movie was released on DVD, Schmoeller was never even asked to participate in a director's commentary for the film in any capacity. In the same interview, he also said that Band owed him residuals even though they had stopped paying him. David Schmoeller modelled Blade on one of his favorite performers, Klaus Kinski. 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. It was planned that Charles Band, the original film's director, would re-create the movie in 2010. Because of the unfavorable reaction, the plan was shelved, and Puppet Master (1989) Axis of Evil was created instead. The majority of the score for this movie is comprised of synthesizer arrangements of Pino Donaggio's music from The Tourist Trap (1979), a film with similar themes on which director David Schmoeller and producer Charles Band had previously collaborated. This score was used for this movie as well.
The beginnings of Puppet Master (1989) may be traced back to Charles Band's tenure at Empire Pictures. Many fans approached him after seeing The Dungeonmaster (aka Ragewar), on which he worked in 1984, and told him how much they liked the moniker. When he chose to make a film using live puppets, he remembered the positive reaction he had received from The Dungeonmaster, which he had always admired.
After that, he just chose the title Puppetmaster for the film. Blade is the only character whose outfit does not vary between films. The VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray covers for The Puppet Master Movies all show Blade, the only puppet who appears on all of them. 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. In addition, during the whole of the image, you can hear the other puppets breathing heavily, groaning, and moaning. despite the fact that none of them are capable of spoken communication.