Fire and Ice is a movie packed with talent. You have the union of Ralph Bakshi, whose films American Pop, Cool World, The Lord of the Rings, Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic and Wizards redefined animation in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Then you have perhaps one of America’s — if not the world’s — foremost fantasy artists in Frank Frazetta. Throw in a script by Roy Thomas and Gary Conway, Marvel Comics scribes who wrote a good chunk of the Conan adaptions that the House of Ideas released. Then gather an array of animators and painters, including Dinotopia creator James Gurney, Aeon Flux creator Peter Chung and even Thomas Kinkade, the painter of light whose mass marketed works are in suburban homes everywhere.

The look of Fire and Ice was achieved by rotoscoping, a process in which the action is filmed, then traced onto animation cels. This is probably the best realization of Bakshi’s technique, as the faces look incredibly human while retaining some cartoon emotion.

In Icepeak, Queen Juliana and her son Nekron unleash a wave of glaciers that continually push humanity further and further south toward the equator. King Jarol, the leader of Firekeep, is asked to surrender but it’s all a trick to kidnap his daughter, Princess Teegra, who Juliana wants her son to marry. However, he rejects that plan and the peace that it would bring to the world.

Teegra makes her escape and she and Larn, the only survivor of a village destroyed by those pesky glaciers and Nekron’s subhumans, try to make it back to Firekeep. However, she gets recaptured and he’s left for dead, only to be saved by the mysterious Darkwolf, who is pretty much Barbarian Batman.

Man, just like Conquest, this is another fantasy film where the guy helping the hero is way cooler than the hero!

Will they save Teegra and Firepeak? Will there be giant dinosaurs? Will Teegra wear the flimsiest of bikinis that somehow manages to stay on? Will Darkwolf kill everything in his path? Or course. But that doesn’t mean that this movie is slow or boring! It’s 81 minutes of Frazetta coming to life — evil monsters, voluptuous women, swordplay and lots of violence.

As recently as 2014, Robert Rodriguez has discussed making a live action version of this. Bakshi wanted nothing to do with it, but he and Frazetta agreed to license the rights to the filmmaker right before Frazetta’s death.

Blue Underground finally released this on DVD in 2005. You can grab a copy at Diabolik DVD or watch the film on Amazon Prime.

Dead Envy is written, directed by and starring Harley Di Nardo, someone who knows something about music. As the lead singer of Closer and White Light Motorcade, he’s gigged and toured for years. You can sense the desperation that he feels, knowing that he might have one great song still in him and wondering if a normal life is a prison that he’s not ready to be part of yet. Despite claiming that his wife Cecily (Samantha Smart) saved him, it never seems that he cares all that much for her.

Javy (Adam Reeser) saves David from a heckler at the club and soon insinuates himself into his life. He gets a job at the salon that the aging rocker owns with his wife, then drugs him at a club and sets him up to have an affair. This allows Javy to further insinuates himself into their lives, as he saves Cecily from an asthma/panic attack.

Between the affair and his need to be a star again, David neglects the salon and the electric bill. He goes to visit his landlord who is also a medium. She tells him that he has to beware of Javy coming into his life. That’s when we learn why David’s rock and roll life ended: he had to skip out on a European tour to take care of Cecily and they went on without him. He learns that she had a miscarriage and never told him.

Meanwhile, Cecily has brought Javy into their home for dinner, along with his other personality, a flickering demon who brings up his worst impulses. That’s when David has to come to terms with how his ego has blinded himself to just how great normal life — and having someone like Cecily — can be.

Dead Envy moves quickly and its cast may be unknown, but DiNardo, Reeser and Smart all bring plenty of talent to their roles. Reeser, in particular, is able to switch his persona from sensitive and thoughtful to maniacal and manipulative, coming off as a really well-portrayed villain. The scene at the end where he has Cecily trapped in her home, asking her if she’s David’s possession and reveals all of his tattoos is pretty intense. The meltdown that he’s been holding back explodes as the film races to its conclusion.

Things wrap up a little too neatly and I wish there was a bit more background about David’s past success to show just why he was so important to Javy, but the film’s still pretty interesting. Band dynamics, lead singer ego and the bond between fan and artist are all pretty powerful — so there’s already plenty of mull over here.

Dead Envy premieres tonight at the Arena Cinelounge Sunset in Hollywood for a one week run, then will be available as a video on demand starting September 3. Check out the official site for more info.

Disclaimer: I was sent this film by its PR team and in no way did that impact my review. Thanks!

The war in Afghanistan has left scars on Steve — physical and emotional ones. He never really returns home, as every day is just a series of repetitive tasks and drinking himself to a fitful slumber. But when the corpse of a gorgeous singer — Diane — shows up in his backyard, he does something strange before calling the police. He takes her photo.

Soon, Steve can only think of the dead woman. The rest of his life is a shambles — attacked by neighbors who think he’s the killer, hounded by the police and even visited by Diane’s husband. There’s only one good thing in his life — he’s now haunted by a woman who he can’t ever remember meeting.

Jason Alan Smith, who appeared on FX’s Feud and in the movie Before I Wake, has to carry nearly this entire movie as Steve. A majority of the film is him speaking directly to the camera or going through the motions of his ruined life. He’s the best actor in it, which is a good thing, because it’s one hell of a challenge. I really liked how the closer Steve gets to Diane’s ghost, the more he changes. He no longer needs a cane to walk and he can easily best the neighborhood toughs. He’s found something to care about again.

Director/writer/director Michael Mongillo (Being Michael Madsen) set the bar high here. Probably higher than the budget would allow, but there are flourishes of style that make this movie stand out. I love the prelude of Diane singing before the title is revealed. And the video effects as Steve battles her spirit near the end of the film are really inventive.

Carlee Avers is interesting as Diane. Most of her role calls for her to look alluring and she easily handles that, but there are some nice moments where her gorgeous veneer is cracked and she speaks honestly of the waste she’s made of her life. At least Steve had the war — all she has are dreams unfulfilled.

Soon, Steve has turned the crime scene into a shrine and Diane into someone he alternately worships, desires and fears. And the ending can only be a tragedy, right?

Diane is an interesting noir-ish film. The press kit has a review that describes it as “Jacob’s Ladder meets Memento,” which is pretty close. I just wish that all of the actors in the film were as solid as the leads. Some of the cop dialogue felt really forced, as did the bullying kids that fight Steve and the people he works with.

While there were times of brilliance when it comes to shot choice and lighting, there are many times when the film looks flat. However, I found more to enjoy than dismiss here. I’m interested to see what Mongillo, Smith and Avers do next.

Diane opens at LA’s Arena Cinelounge on September 7, then will be available nationwide on cable and digital VOD including iTunes, Amazon Instant, Google Play and Vudu September 17. For more information, visit the official site.

Disclaimer: I was sent this film by its PR team and in no way did that impact my review. Thanks!

My search for new movies leads me many places. Sometimes, you see the names Russ Tamblyn (Satan’s Sadists) and Lyle Waggoner (Love Me Deadly) and you say, let’s take a chance. And then you regret it in the way one regrets saying, “OK, just nine more slices of pizza.”

Lord Khoura (Waggoner) and Ulric (Tamblyn) have battled over the Blade of Aktar for years. Now, Ulric’s daughter Melina has enlisted a swordsman called Thane to get the sword and her father back.

There are exactly three reasons to watch this: Lawrence Tierney from Pulp Fiction as a slavemaster, Michael Berryman shows up and stop-motion dinosaurs.

According to director Fred Olen Ray, there were sets left over from Roger Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death remake. Before they were taken down, he wrote a film, hired actors and shot the film in four days, then shot Bad Girls from Mars in the day that he had left.

Make no mistake. This movie is a complete waste of time. And not even an interesting one. If anything, please use my painful time enduring this film as a warning to never suffer through it yourself. If you really want to watch it, it’s on Amazon Prime.

You know what Gordon Sumner said. The Russians love their children too. None of that comes up in this movie. But it seemed like a great opening.

The U.S. and Russia have already fired most of their missiles before this movie even begins, with most of humanity dying in the process. In order to finish World War 3 with no more bloodshed, each country picks their best soldiers and sends them to battle to the death in Virginia.

Sgt. Tom Batanic (brother of director David Prior, Ted) and Sergei (Robert Z’Dar, Maniac Cop) spend most of this movie fighting one another with all manner of weapons before going mano y рука. Just as they decide to stop fighting, the mysterious forces that run the world blow up the building they’re in. Yep — the U.S. and Russia have been working together the whole time. But good news — our heroes have survived and the FBI saves the day.

Thrill to a decimated world that actually looks like an office park! Swoon to the forced romance between Batanic and Lt. Tavlin! Become sure that this is just as shitty of a movie as Killer Workout, another Prior directed film! Discover the true fact that Robert Z’Dar was once a Chippendales dancer!

It’s on Amazon Prime. But come on. There are so many better films to watch.

Thanks to Paul Andolina for sharing this. Check out his writing at Wrestling with Film.

I was walking through our local Walmart last week when some DVD artwork caught my eye. It was simple, a few faces hovering over a battlefield, the most predominant being a man wearing an open faced helmet. I picked it up because it felt like something was telling me to. I try to trust my gut when it comes to movies. I read the back and immediately checked what language the audio was in. I was delighted to find that it was in Russian! It was titled The Last Warrior. I have been interested in Russian culture since I was young. Its history, people, and entertainment have fascinated me in one way or the other over the past 18 years of my life. One thing I have struggled with as a film lover interested in Russian films is that not as many films make it to the English speaking market for some odd reason. When they do get released here I am hard pressed to find it in its original length and audio without cuts or dubbing.  I didn’t have the cash to immediately buy it which is what I would normally do when I come across anything in the Russian language but I did head over to the nearest Family Video to see if it was available to rent. There it was, all alone, a single copy of the video; normally if something is also released on Bluray, a copy of it in that format is also there but there was one DVD of The Last Warrior in the entire store. I shouldn’t be surprised as not everyone races out to watch the latest Russian language release to hit shelves. I couldn’t wait to run home and throw it into my player and get lost for a bit. What I got in the end was more than I could have hoped for.

The Last Warrior is titled Скиф (The Scythian) in its native language. The Last Warrior centers around a soldier named Lyutobor (Лутобор). His wife gives birth to a son but is then kidnapped along with the child. Lyutobor receives a note to kill the leader of his settlement in exchange for her life. A tribe of trained Scythian assassins is near the end of their culture’s presence abducts them. One off the Scythians named Kunitsa (Куница) which is the Russian word for the animals known as a marten is left behind during the attack and becomes Lyutobor’s guide to find the tribe and hopefully the kidnappers themselves. It seems to be a fairly by the numbers Russian epic set during the ancient Russian period. It proves to be anything but that.

Russians churn out period pieces set during conflicts quite often. Whether it be during the Great Patriotic War or more recent conflicts like the 1979 conflict in Afghanistan you’re bound to find a movie set in those times. My favorites, however, are the semi-historical epics that center on legendary warriors. The Last Warrior was certainly satisfying in that aspect but I was not prepared for its turn into dark fantasy. When Lyutobor has Kunitsa swear before one of the many ancient Russian deities Perun, a haunting spectre of frailty descends a ladder saying that Kunitsa’s oath means nothing as he does not worship this god. The guardian of Perun’s temple who utters these words is a blind man covered in ashes or white paint imbued with mysterious powers. I knew then that I was in for a special treat if it continued down this path. There is a later encounter with a collective of tree-dwelling folks who worship a strange strong man that continues this film’s flirtations with the mystic and barbaric. The Last Warrior isn’t a typical Conan cash in that was so popular with Italian and English directors alike after its release but I do feel it is in some way kin to those films. The world you get to experience for 104 minutes is one that folks of Robert E. Howard’s work may enjoy. It is not lacking in the brutality department either. There are a few battles between small groups of folks and even some great hand to hand combat on display. Those that love swords and other bladed weaponry are in for a treat as well as combat with these instruments is throughout the film. There is no shortage of blood either with even some nice gore effects being showcased in some fights. I really do feel like this film will be much more appreciated a few years from now if it is not discovered by many folks while it is out now. It has all the trappings of a film that could become a favorite among fans of genre film. All said if you are a fan of sword and sorcery and dark fantasy you should enjoy this film. If you are feeling adventurous and would just like to see what I consider a sterling example of what Russian cinema can offer when done well I would like to suggest you give it a shot. The DVD and Blurays both offer English language options in the form of dubbing and of course includes English subtitles for the Russian audio track. 

We have too many movies. At current count, we have around 2,642 DVDs. Every time I walk into a used video store, I try and tell myself, “You don’t need anything.” But then I have a rough day of work. Or a great day of work. And then I’m in a store and see a movie that has George Eastman wearing a giant lion head and killing everyone he sees in a ripoff of Quest for Fire and I just throw my wallet at the closest person in the store and run around the store screaming like a loon.

George Eastman’s best roles — like Nikos Karamanlis in Antropophagus, One in Warriors of the Wasteland and Big Ape in 2019: After the Fall of New York — are beloved because of the moments where he goes fully unhinged and becomes a maniac. In this movie, as Vood, he’s berserk minutes into the movie, killing Zod, the leader of his tribe in a bid for taking over, then murdering the wise elder who tries to make peace. He’s sent away from the tribe, where he ends up learning how to forge metal in a volcano and make weapons!

That’s when he meets Lith, who shows up out of nowhere to tell him that the fire god Enferon has picked him to take over the world. With his new sword, he easily takes over his former tribe and makes all the members his loyal servants.  Let me set up this arms race for you: he’s the first dude and the only dude to have a sword. Vood (or Vuud, who am I to quibble) is basically bringing nukes to a knife fight. Well, actually he’s bringing a big knife. You know what I mean.

He kicks his main rival, Ela, out of the tribe and ties him to a giant X, where he faces off against cavemen. He’s saved by Isa and her tribe, who are good at medicine but also whose peaceful ways are little match for George Eastman killing everything in his path and demanding that all others do the same.

Of course, a final battle has to happen between cavemen maniacs and cavemen hippies. There is some romantic intrigue and plenty of blood along the way. What else would you expect from director Umberto Lenzi (Ghosthouse, Cannibal Ferox, Nightmare City, Eaten Alive!)? This is total entertainment.

I may have too many DVDs, but this one was so worth getting. This movie is pure garbage in the best of ways. It even recycles the music from Mountain of the Cannibal God and Adam and Eve vs. the Cannibals, two other prime pieces of Italian cinematic goofiness.

You can grab the Code Red blu ray version on Diabolik DVD!

After The Thing and Prince of Darkness, this is the third and final part of John Carpenter’s  Apocalypse Trilogy. It’s a film that plays with the very notion of reality, how fictional characters perceive themselves within a narrative and issues of creation itself. It’s a natural next step after Prince of Darkness, playing with many of the same themes.

The film starts with a narrative device that will be familiar to readers of H.P. Lovecraft, as Dr. Wrenn (David Warner, The Omen, From Beyond the Grave) visits a patient in a psychiatric hospital who has written all over the walls and himself, covering them with crosses.

John Trent (Sam Neill, Jurassic Park) is an insurance investigator who can smell out a co like no one else. We’re shown an example in the beginning, as he breaks down a scam being perpetrated by a business owner (Carpenter regular Peter Jason). Later, he meets with the owner of an insurance company (Bernie Casey, Gargoyles) who gives him a new case: investigating a claim made by Arcane Publishing that their biggest selling author, Sutter Cane, has disappeared.

Just then, a man attacks them with an axe. He stops to ask Trent, “Do you read Sutter Cane?” The police shoot him and later, we learn that this man was Cane’s agent, who was so influenced by reading his latest manuscript that he killed his entire family.

Trent meets Arcand Publishing owner Jackson Harglow (Charlton Heston!) who asks him to look into the disappearance with the help of Cane’s editor, Linda Styles (Julie Carmen, Fright Night Part 2). As he begins to read Cane’s books, Trent learns that his readers have been known to suffer from disorientation, memory loss and paranoia first-hand.

He’s also convinced that this disappearance is a publicity stunt. Yet he spends plenty of time tearing apart Cane’s book covers, which form the state of New Hampshire and mark Hobbs End, the location for many of Cane’s stories — which is quite like Castle Rock in Stephen King’s tales.

As they travel to the fictional town, Linda begins to see things and they both lose track of day and night. Once in the town, the people and landmarks are exactly as they appeared in the written word. Trent believes this is still a publicity stunt. Linda comes clean and says that the disappearance started as a stunt, but no one can find Cane. Everything happened from now on is real, she claims.

For example, inside their hotel room, Trent claims there should be a black church out the window. The only problem is that he didn’t read the books closely enough. While the first window he opens reveals nothing, that evil cathedral is revealed when he opens the window that faces the east.

As they travel to the church, an army of black dogs emerges to defend Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow, Dune, The Keep) who sits inside. Linda confronts him, but simply being exposed to his final novel, In the Mouth of Madness, drives her insane.

The fabric of reality has begun to tear asunder. A man (former pro wrestler Wilhelm von Homburg who played Viggo in Ghostbusters 2 who led an insane and demented life) tells Trent that Cane has his son and he can no longer save him. His own daughter attacked him and he could do nothing to stop her. He wishes that he could tell him more, but this is how Cane wrote him. With that sentence hanging in the ether, the man blows his brains out with a shotgun.

The townspeople have become monsters and the story beats of each of Cane’s tales have started to come true. Trent tries to drive away but keeps coming back to the center of town. He takes Linda with him, but she transforms into a monster. Finally, he crashes his car and wakes up inside the church. Cane explains to him that his stories ended up being true, an almost Bible for a new and more horrible world. As more of his readers began to believe in his stories, they raised a race of Ancient Ones from the before times. Again, this is well-trod ground for anyone that has read Lovecraft but not something that makes it to the screen that often.

Cane explains that Trent is just one of his characters and his role is to help end humanity by delivering his final story to Arcane. He then tears his face open, sending Trent to the dimension of the monsters from beyond time and space. As he runs down a long tunnel to come back to the real world, he begs Linda to come with him. She says that since she has read the whole book, she can’t.

Once Trent makes it back, he destroys the story. But once he visits Arcane, he learns that Linda never existed and the final book has already been published. In fact, they are almost done making a movie. Trent is then arrested after attacking readers of the book with an axe.

We come back to the asylum, where Dr. Wrenn laughs off the story and walks away to leave, only to have the attendant, Saperstein (John Glover, Gremlins 2) ask him, “Do you read Sutter Cane?”

Trent barely sleeps the night, convinced that people are fighting and dying outside the walls of his cell. He awakens to find the hospital and most of the city abandoned, with only the pages of Sutter Cane books left behind. A radio announces that mass murder and suicides are happening in every major city, with some people mutating into monsters.

Finally, he wanders into a theater where In the Mouth of Madness is playing. As he watches the entire movie replay, he begins to laugh hysterically before crying. He is just another character in another story, never real in the first place.

Between characters named Pickman and the closeness of Cane’s titles to Lovecraft’s (Sutter Cane’s novels have similar titles to H.P. Lovecraft stories: The Whisperer of the Dark is The Whisperer in Darkness, The Thing in the Basement is The Thing on the Doorstep and The Haunter Out of Time is almost The Haunter of the Dark or The Shadow Out of Time), this is probably the closest we’ll get to a major budget Lovecraft film that isn’t Re-Animator. All of the words read from Cane’s books are also from Lovecraft, including parts of The Rats in the Walls and The Haunter of the Dark.

Beyond that, even the town’s name — Hobb’s End — is a reference to a work that is close to the heart of Carpenter. It’s the train station where the spaceship is found in Quatermass and the Pit. And the inscription on the church, “Let these doors be sealed by our Lord God and let any who dare enter this unholy site be damned forever,” are similar to the words “Terribilis est locus iste” at France’s Rennes Le Château. In English, that should read “This place is terrible.”

Even more interesting, if you pause and read the movie poster for the movie within the movie, you’ll learn that other than the three main characters, all of the actual people who worked on the movie are listed. So is the movie real? Was Cane ever real? Was Trent just a made up character? Are we real? Is reality just an illusion?

These are some big questions. Maybe you should get the Shout! Factory blu ray or watch this on Shudder and come up with your own answers. Have you watched Sutter Cane?

Is there an actor that can save any movie for you? There is one for me: John Saxon. I have sat through many a piece of absolute shit only because Saxon shows up to be the hero of the day, even if he’s usually the villain.

TV reporter Carrie Madison (Kay Lenz, The Initiation of Sarah, House) is trying to meet with mad scientist Dr. Hartmann when she literally runs into Dan Roebuck’s (Richard Hatch, TV’s Battlestar Galactica) truck. Once they find the scientist, his machine causes them all to disappear to the parallel world of Vonya, which is populated by cavemen and the warlord Kleel (John Saxon, of course) who has plenty of Earth technology.

Director Terry Marcel also was behind the films Hawk the Slayer and Jane and the Lost City, so obviously sword, sorcery and science fiction was his bread and butter. Too bad that his bread and butter tastes so bad.

If you want to see John Saxon outact everyone around him — sadly I wish this were higher praise — and a ragtag group of aliens fight cavemen, I guess you should watch this. I can recommend several much better movies in this genre, though. That said, it’s free to watch on Amazon Prime.

Despite being direct to video releases (yes, some have had limited releases in theaters and the first was considered for theatrical release), the Puppet Master series is one that’s packed with content. Produced by Full Moon Features, the series started in 1989 with Puppet Master, which has been followed by ten sequels/prequels, a non-canon crossover with the characters of Demonic Toys, two comic book mini-series, an ongoing comic book series, toys and now, this reboot.

Opening in Postville, Texas, where that “old guy” comes into a bar where he’s been frequently upsetting the female customers. That “old guy” is Andre Toulon, the inventor of the puppets who this movie is all about and he’s played by Udo Kier, all of people. After bothering the bartender and her girlfriend, he leaves into the night, upset as they embrace and kiss.

Later that night, the girls leave the bar and discuss their future. After hearing a noise, one of them is attacked. Soon, we see Toulon lying in a basement, telling the puppets to come to him. This scene felt really disjointed — setting up the murder but not showing it actually happening. Everything jumps forward to the police investigating the crime scene, with both girls dead and small footprints running away from the car.

The police rush — with no backup or warrant — to the Toulon house, where we see Andre rise painfully and pull down a concrete pillar. They enter the house and we hear gunfire as the title card appears.

Note: the producers have stated that this film takes place in a parallel universe, which is why Andre Toulon is an evil Nazi instead of battling against the Third Reich.

Dallas, Texas. Today. Edgar (Thomas Lennon, The State, Reno 9-11 and a character actor who has shown up in plenty of films way below his talent level) is recovering from a divorce and has retreated to his childhood home to heal. There, he discovers a mint condition Blade doll in his dead brother’s room and decides to sell it at a convention that celebrates the Toulon Murders for a big profit. Joining him on the way are Markowitz (Nelson Franklin, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) and Ashley.

They sign up for a tour of the Toulon house, led by Carol Doreski (Barbara Crampton, Re-Animator, Chopping Mall, We Are Still Here), the officer who raided the mansion thirty years ago. She explains the backstory of how Toulon began creating the puppets and where everything went wrong.

Once Toulon escaped World War 2 — his wife committed suicide at sea — he settled in this small Texas town. On the night the police were called in, they found a house of horrors, including a soundproof room where Jewish women were tortured. There are also books in the house on all manner of subjects like astrology, numerology, demonology and more, as well as books that came directly from Adolf Eichmann, the creator of the Final Solution.

Finally, Doreski shows the tour group where Toulon was shot as she finishes the tour at the mausoleum where his body lies in rest. There are rods inside the building that some feel have occult significance, but that no one can really explain.

When Edgar and Ashley — now a couple who make out at every opportunity — come back to their hotel room, his Blade doll is missing and the front desk answers back in French, saying “Remain in the shadows.” If you think things are going to get normal from here on out, well, things are only going the other way. Soon, Torch appears and makes the first two gory kills. In a world of CGI, it’s nice to see some practical effects here! The burn effects are really well done.

This isn’t a film that skimps on nudity, either. We cut right from those brutal kills to a couple in the throes of passion — including breasts against the window ala Catholic High School Girls in Trouble from The Kentucky Fried Movie. Blade soon gets involved, slicing them to ribbons, including a Pet Semetary style ankle shredding.

Say what you will about this movie, but it knows its audience. We find another convention goer watching some wrestling in his room (I recognize David Starr, which I wonder is intentional as he’s a Jewish pro wrestler). Man, I don’t want to spoil the kill that follows, but suffice to say I’ve never seen anyone urinate on a decapitated head before. Just wow. If you’re looking for the red stuff — and I guess the yellow stuff — this movie has you covered.

While Markowitz tries to get some action at the bar, Detective Brown (Michael Paré from Streets of Fire! This is the kind of casting I’d dream of if Italian exploitation movies were still being made!) shows up to investigate the missing Blade doll. Soon, he learns that everyone that brought a doll has lost them. And man do they pay. We don’t meet a single character really and get to know them, we just watch puppets decimate them. But hey — isn’t that why you’re watching this?

This movie totally needs a Joe Bob Briggs breakdown of the kills. Spinning robot fu. Intestine ripped out fu. Drill fu. Puppet abortion fu. Seriously, that last one is on the level of Joe D’Amato or Ruggero Deodato depravity.

The police make everyone leaves their rooms and gather in the lobby as multiple crime scenes appear. Can everyone survive the onslaught of Blade, Pinhead, Tunneler, Torch, Mechaniker, Happy Amphibian, Grasshüpfer, Mr. Pumper, Junior Fuhrer, Autogyro and Money Lender?

“Lots of terrible shit happens to people who don’t deserve it,” says a fan at the end of the film. “I don’t think things are fully resolved,” says our sole survivor as a TO BE CONTINUED comes up. Well, here’s to hoping!

Directed by Sonny Liguna and Tommy Wiklund (Animalistic) and written by S. Craig Zahler (Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cell Block 99) with credit given to Charles Band, there’s a major narrative shift that changes up this film from any that have come before. Where in the past, the puppets were created to battle the Nazis and have been taken over by whomever can command them, here they were explicitly by a Nazi to kill their enemies, like Jewish people, blacks, gay people and gypsies. Essentially, the characters that you want to cheer on are committing hate crimes. That’s a pretty big jump to make. Then again, if you see this is an exploitation film, you know that all bets are off. Creator Charles Band told Entertainment Weekly, “You’ve got to go back to what exploitation movies were 40-50 years ago. I mean, it’s hard today. There’s so much out there. We’re so jaded. I mean, television news, when something bad happens, it’s worse than most horror movies I’ve ever made: decapitations and terrorism. And, you know, what do you do to an audience that has seen it all, to get them talking? What [Cinestate] has done is gone full-on exploitation. They’ve got something going there, where there is going to be controversy.”

I’ve hinted at it before, but the Italian sleaze roots of this film run deep. So deep that Fabio Frizzi (The Beyond, Zombi, Manhattan Baby) did the score! And the role that Skeeta Jenkins plays totally feels made for Bobby Rhodes.

Band has stated that he still has plans to make his own Puppet Master movies and that Cinestate has plans to make a big budget version of Castle Freak next. Here’s hoping that movies like Trancers and Subspecies also get their shot!

Despite the changing of the series’ premise — I’ve never been a hardcore fan, so I got past this quickly — this movie is exactly what it should be. Quick, brutal and filled with the red stuff. Sure, we never find out what the hell is going on in that mausoleum. And we have no idea what happens next. But isn’t that the beauty of a fun exploitation movie? Shut your brain off and enjoy.

Disclaimer: I was sent this film by its PR team and in no way did that impact my review. Thanks!