The most impressive thing about Full Moon’s Puppet Master Axis Trilogy is probably how hard it finds to make killer puppets slaughtering Nazis fun. I mean, surely that’s a home run idea for a low budget series frequently strapped for inspiration – and yet for two whole films, the Puppet Master franchise visibly struggled to fully embrace the chaos and deliver films that could live up to such a wacky concept. What was even more galling is that the franchise had already gone down this route before with far more entertaining results thanks to 1991’s Puppet Master III that left the underwhelming presence of Axis Of Evil and Axis Rising even more frustrating. Could Axis Termination, the final film in the Axis trilogy, manage to right some wrongs and get the series back on track?
Well, not really, no – but if nothing else the third film is certainly less racist, if that helps any?
The year is 1941 and for reasons best known to nobody, we kick things off with the abrupt and quick assassination of the trilogy’s previous leads – current Puppet Master Danny and his sweetheart Beth – after Getman spies try to intercept the Puppets while they’re being handed over to the military in order to aid in the American war effort. The Captain assigned to make the transfer, Brooks, suddenly finds himself in charge of a clutch of homicidal dolls which he’s then assigned to deliver to an assembled team of psychics in order to combat the growing threat of an opposing group of occult Nazis.
Obviously, Brooks is skeptical as Hell, but soon the team made up of “Russian” empath, Dr. Ivan Ivanoff; his precog daughter, Elisa; and scantily clan voodoo priestess, Georgia Vale, start to grow on him as they gear up to go head to head with the eldritch powers wielded by the Third Reich. Not only are the trio of evil puppets created in the last movie – Blitzkrieg, Weremacht and Bombshell – backing them up, but leading them is powerful psychic, Sturmbahnfurher Krabke, who enjoys beaming suggestions of sadistic torture into the brains of his victims.
However, while the ego of Krabke sees the concept of killer puppets turning the tide of the war completely ridiculous, Doktor Gerde Ernst sees the possibilities and schemes to undermine him whenever she can. But with the first stone being cast with the kidnapping of Elisa, Dr Ivanoff’s group and his collection of Puppets have to enter the lion’s den and vaquish both the Nazi psychics and their clutch of murder dolls. Can the combined might of Blade, Pinhead, Tunneller, Leech Woman and Six-Shooter (Jester’s still fucking useless) manage to turn the tide against superpowered Nazis, miniature werewolves and a puppet with machine guns in her boobs – by the way, while we’re on the subject, does anyone else think that they should have named Bombshell Double D-Day? Just me then? Cool.
Once again, we find the potentially awesome senario of killer puppets pitching in and doing their part during WWII turned into yet another 70 minutes of wasted opportunities. It truly does seem that Charles Band and everyone involved doesn’t understand that the central concept can’t carry the movie without the film itself having to actually make it work. If the first entry of the Axis Trilogy fluffed the already explored notion of Puppets vs Nazis and the second failed to make the most of the Third Reich making their own puppets to counteract our little anti-heroes (although the Leech Woman/Bombshell cat fight was a massive step in the wacky, right direction), Axis Termination sees the series mostly botch the notion of Allied psychics battling to stop telepathic Nazis assassins. Quite how they do that is relatively simple – get everyone to talk about it more than actually showing it while once again not-so discreetly shoving the titular puppets aside until the movie is in danger of violating the rules of false advertising.
Remember that grudge match they were setting up a movie ago between our puppety guys and that trio of Nazi themed upstarts? Well, the scriptwriters sure didn’t, as that animosity seems to have dissipated in the time between movies and even weirder is the decision to kill off the lead characters from the first two entries when they just could have easily included them in the action or just not included them at all. I’m not sure if Charles Band had plans to continue the Axis series beyond Termination and that’s why his trilogy-ending skills are woefully inadequate, but the film manages to pull off the impressive trick of failing to pull off a single exciting idea that got raised in any of the three movies. No puppet battle, no rematch between Leech Woman and Bombshell, even the climactic battle between psychics is nothing more than just the actors scowling at each other while unconvincing, wavy effects are included in post production.
In fact, proving to be far more mysterious than anything in the script are bizarre filming snafus that mercifully drawn the attention away from the bland plot. For example, while George Appleby’s Ivanov is repeatedly introduced as Russian, his accent suggests he hails more in the direction of the north of England (Liverpool I’m guessing) and unless I’m going insane, I’d swear some of the effects work of Blade and Tunneller running we’re performed by two full-sized guys in puppet costumes loping in front of a green screen. It’s exactly the sort of weird, filmmaking shit that stopped Axis Termination bombing with me completely, but picking holes in the film shouldn’t really be the main source of entertainment when the senario is just so juicy. I know I just keep going back to the budget on these things, but I’m now getting suspicious that rather than cash flow, the real reason no one takes advantage of how trashily cool these films could be, is because no one can be fucked to actually put in the work and do it. Why else would fan favourite Six-Shooter be mostly benched in the final film? Why would there be no resolution in the evil puppet storyline at all? Why would we think Blade getting his blade swapped out for a syringe is far cooler than what he already had?
There’s flashes of inspiration here that suggest not everyone was asleep at the wheel. The Nazi henchwoman with syringe fingers is exactly the right kind of weird the movie so desperately needs; both Blade and Tunneller manage to rack up bloody bodycounts; and once again, for the second movie in a row, Leech Woman scores the most memorable moment when she slows the roll of an all powerful Sturmbahnfurher Krabke (who looks vaguely like a younger Stephen King) by gobbing a leech right into his eye.
Once again botching a fun concept by being frustratingly lame and never fully embracing the lunacy, Axis Termination ensures that the entire trilogy is three for three when it comes to blitzkrieging a promising puppet vs Nazi premise. In fact, I’m starting to wonder why even long-term fans should be bothered if the filmmakers can’t be arsed to do more than the bare minimum. Maybe it’s the franchise itself that needs termination as it soundly proves that three wrongs don’t make a Reich…
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