Puppet Master: The Legacy features a woman named Macclain (Kate Orsini) who has been hired to discover the secret behind puppet master Andre Toulon's (played by actors Guy Rolfe & William Hickey who is in the film & not just the trailer as the IMDb would have you believe) serum that manages to give life to his inanimate wooden puppets such as Blade, Tunneller, Six Shooter, Torch, Leech Woman, Pinhead & the cool Jester who each become living killing machines ready to protect their creator. Macclain breaks into Toulon's final resting place Bogeda Bay Inn where she finds Toulon's old friend Eric Weiss (Jacob Witkin) & threatens to torture & kill him unless he hands the secret over, as the two argue the truth about Andre Toulon is revealed as his entire life & the events surrounding his killer puppets are told...
Directed by Charles Band under the pseudonym of Robert Talbot Puppet Master: The Legacy is the eighth & to date final film in the Puppet Master franchise that started with the excellent Puppet Master (1989) all those years ago, the series carried on with Puppet Master II (1991), Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991), Puppet Master 4 (1993), Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter (1994), Curse of the Puppet Master (1998) & finally Retro Puppet Master (1999) before this instalment which went straight to video in '03. The script by C. Courtney Joyner under the pseudonym of Gene Yarbrough tries to tell the tale of Andre Toulon in chronological order & make some sense out of it unlike the series as it stands at the moment & is basically an excuse to use as much footage from the previous seven Puppet Master films as possible, Puppet Master: The Legacy features clips from all of the previous entries. It would be interesting to know just how much original footage this contains, at a rough guess I'd say no more than fifteen minutes worth & that's being generous. The clips are reasonably well edited into into a new film, there are a few sudden jumps in logic & location, there are numerous occasions where character's just come & go within the space of a few minutes & it's a bit choppy as you would expect a 70 minute film made up from seven other films would be. I was going to start this comment by saying that I was a fan of the Puppet Master films but then I realised I have only seen the first two which I thought were both great, unfortunately judging by some of the footage from the other sequels the series obviously went downhill in a big way. I must admit I rather liked Puppet Master: The Legacy, they at least keep things moving, the clips used are good, I've only seen the first two so most of the footage was new to me anyway & rather surprisingly the twist ending was rather good, in fact I'd go as far as to say it was pretty clever (hell, I doubt there are many instances in any Puppet Master film you could describe as clever) & was a nice way to round things off.
Director Band doesn't do anything as there's hardly any new footage here, what is here is reasonably well shot & there are some OK shots of the puppets. Various special effect & gore highlights throughout the series are present including face slashing, brain tunnelling, hook impaling, head bashing, shooting, burning, crotch drilling, throat slashing & Leech regurgitating. The puppets themselves are cool & probably the best bunch of killer toys ever to grace the silver screen!
The budget stretched to one room, some scientific lab equipment & the services of two actors, that's all there is to Puppet Master: The Legacy. These parts look fine even though the digital video used looks odd whenever it uses clips from the first two films which actually had budgets & were obviously shot on 35mm film. The distinctive, sinister & rather good Puppet Master theme music is used throughout. The acting was alright.
Puppet Master: The Legacy isn't for everyone that's for sure as most of it is just footage taken from the other Puppet Master films. However I quite liked it as I really like the first two in the series, the killer puppets themselves have real character & personality & are some of the best & most memorable seen in this type of film & if you like the Puppet Master series & know what your getting yourself into then I'd say it's worth watching but probably not worth buying as you'd only want to watch it once. As if that wasn't enough the murderous Puppet Master dolls returned in the made-for-TV film Puppet Master Vs Demonic Toys (2004) which sounds, erm, interesting.
Directed by Charles Band under the pseudonym of Robert Talbot Puppet Master: The Legacy is the eighth & to date final film in the Puppet Master franchise that started with the excellent Puppet Master (1989) all those years ago, the series carried on with Puppet Master II (1991), Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991), Puppet Master 4 (1993), Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter (1994), Curse of the Puppet Master (1998) & finally Retro Puppet Master (1999) before this instalment which went straight to video in '03. The script by C. Courtney Joyner under the pseudonym of Gene Yarbrough tries to tell the tale of Andre Toulon in chronological order & make some sense out of it unlike the series as it stands at the moment & is basically an excuse to use as much footage from the previous seven Puppet Master films as possible, Puppet Master: The Legacy features clips from all of the previous entries. It would be interesting to know just how much original footage this contains, at a rough guess I'd say no more than fifteen minutes worth & that's being generous. The clips are reasonably well edited into into a new film, there are a few sudden jumps in logic & location, there are numerous occasions where character's just come & go within the space of a few minutes & it's a bit choppy as you would expect a 70 minute film made up from seven other films would be. I was going to start this comment by saying that I was a fan of the Puppet Master films but then I realised I have only seen the first two which I thought were both great, unfortunately judging by some of the footage from the other sequels the series obviously went downhill in a big way. I must admit I rather liked Puppet Master: The Legacy, they at least keep things moving, the clips used are good, I've only seen the first two so most of the footage was new to me anyway & rather surprisingly the twist ending was rather good, in fact I'd go as far as to say it was pretty clever (hell, I doubt there are many instances in any Puppet Master film you could describe as clever) & was a nice way to round things off.
Director Band doesn't do anything as there's hardly any new footage here, what is here is reasonably well shot & there are some OK shots of the puppets. Various special effect & gore highlights throughout the series are present including face slashing, brain tunnelling, hook impaling, head bashing, shooting, burning, crotch drilling, throat slashing & Leech regurgitating. The puppets themselves are cool & probably the best bunch of killer toys ever to grace the silver screen!
The budget stretched to one room, some scientific lab equipment & the services of two actors, that's all there is to Puppet Master: The Legacy. These parts look fine even though the digital video used looks odd whenever it uses clips from the first two films which actually had budgets & were obviously shot on 35mm film. The distinctive, sinister & rather good Puppet Master theme music is used throughout. The acting was alright.
Puppet Master: The Legacy isn't for everyone that's for sure as most of it is just footage taken from the other Puppet Master films. However I quite liked it as I really like the first two in the series, the killer puppets themselves have real character & personality & are some of the best & most memorable seen in this type of film & if you like the Puppet Master series & know what your getting yourself into then I'd say it's worth watching but probably not worth buying as you'd only want to watch it once. As if that wasn't enough the murderous Puppet Master dolls returned in the made-for-TV film Puppet Master Vs Demonic Toys (2004) which sounds, erm, interesting.