What is genuinely left for the Puppet Master movies to do? After surviving on the low budget scene for over thirty years, you’d think that the coalition of killer collectibles had tapped every Nazi-related angle they had – especially when the mischevious reboot of The Littlest Reich had them flip sides and be recast as German death machines. However, while most attempts to keep a franchise going requires getting ever bigger, producer Charles Band obviously doesn’t have that kind of money, but has he managed to crack the conundrum by choosing to go… smaller?
Yup, in sort of a reverse Avengers, the Puppet Master series decided to leave the reboot’s cliffhanger forever in limbo (an annoying fact we’ll just have to live with) and go back to referencing their Axis trilogy by ditching the group entirely and merely focusing on a single puppet. Not only that, but they’ve wisely put their entire focus onto arguably the most popular puppet of the bunch – Jester. No, obviously I’m kidding. (Fucking Jester? Could you imagine?). It was Blade’s time to shine, but could he carry the weight of an entire franchise on his teensy little shoulders?
Sometime after the events of Puppet Master: Axis Termination, we rejoin with Elisa Ivanov, the Russian psychic psychic daughter of Ivan Ivanoff who has been left in possession of the puppets while her father has gone back home to continue his “brain research” (their terminology, not mine). Making a living at as a writer for a newspaper, Elisa manages to provide headlines for stories before they even happen thanks to her prophetic dreams – but when one leads her to a mutilated corpse abandoned in an alleyway, she uncovers a plot by American Nazis to continue the inhuman experiments that was occuring on U.S. soil by spies during the war. It seems that through a combination of pain and psychic energy, the diabolical Hauser has managed to find a way to create savage zombies who could act as bezerker troops if the Reich ever managed to get their act together. But with various spies and traitors infecting the police and the newspaper, tabs are kept on Elisa as her connection to the puppets could prove useful in their endeavours.
But what of Blade – I mean, it’s his movie after all. Well, it seems that the lethalist puppet is suffering with his static companions due to a lack of the elixir that fuels them, but after a particularly sizable burst of Elisa’s psychic energy re-energises him, he forms a bond with her that only seems to strengthen when she sharpens his knives, attempts to read his mind and shows him her boobs – no, really. But soon Hauser and his army of goons come for Elisa in order to abuse her gifts for their unholy cause and create that zombie army.
Can Blade manage to take out an entire Nazi cell on his own, and can you manage to keep up with a plot that flatly refuses to explain why or how anything is happening?
Blade: The Iron Cross seems to find itself in something of a curious predicament – for a start it’s proof that the spitefully silly The Littlest Reich series was practically dead and buried already, despite being the best entry in decades, and secondly it denotes a return to the annoying Axis Universe that never truly managed to realise the full potential of a Puppets vs. Nazi series of films. However, in something of a surprise, while Blade’s solo outing admittedly manages to be inferior to the splattery reboot, it’s noticably more fun that the entirety of the Axis Trilogy put together. Downsizing the more puppety cast members proves to be mainly smart because during multiple points of the Axis Trilogy, most of the dolls not actively in use would awkwardly be standing prone in the corner of the frame which led to such characters as Six-Shooter having nothing to do. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the movie is a non-stop Blade-fest, as he scampers around, slicing throats and we get a fair bit of baggage to pad out an already meager runtime due to a budget that’s tighter than the average shirt on Sidney Sweeny.
Also, the storytelling is impressively hideous. Vast amounts of things happen that receive virtually no explanation whatsoever – for example, that whole bit about Blade and Elisa Ivanov bonding in the synopsis? I only realised that’s what was supposed to be happening after reading the plot description on Wikipedia afterwards, and later on the confusion gets even worse. A climactic moment that sees the villainous Hauser literally use his robot arm to hammer Blade (and his clothes somehow) to literal dust is quickly undone when the Nazi inhales his essence, causing the puppet to reform inside him and stab his way out like a confusingly scripted Alien. Sure, it’s a cool visual, but it’s barely set up at all and the movie is rotten with lazy plotting, poor writing and distractingly strange moments that stand out just for being incredibly strange. For example, why does the actress playing Elisa shows her tits to Blade like she’s flirting with him, and what’s with her sharpening his blades like it’s the fucking pottery scene from Ghost? Is Blade about to get some?
Anyway, as amusingly bizarre as that all is, at least it’s memorable, and the creation of the period the film is set in feels nicely like a comic book version of post-war America, complete with bellowing newspaper editors and tough-but-caring police detectives littering the place. Similarly, even though Blade doesn’t get to do anything until the third act (unless you count ogling at a pair of breasts), the fact that the American Nazis are creating a bunch of zombies at least breaks up the monotony a little. Of course, once the film let’s its titular doll off the leash, we get a clumsily edited final sequence that sees him vanquish some of the hilariously slowest henchmen you’ve ever seen (it’s a fucking doll, guys) – however, there’s a certain sense of goofy fun watching Blade hook a guy in the mouth with one arm and saw away at his throat with the other.
Any rational movie goer would no doubt find Blade: The Iron Cross quite the chore to sit through, even at a ridiculously slim 70 minutes – however, as this is my fourteenth Puppet Master movie in as many months, I’ve been so broken down by endless installments of deadly dolls that this solo entry sits at the more positive end of a frequently bad pile. From here, Full Moon decided to forge ahead with the single puppet idea with Puppet Master: Doktor Death (for some reason) and I suppose considering the sheer amount of puppets the franchise now has, focusing on individuals was probably the smartest way to go, and this movie sort-of proves it. There’s still a notable lack of puppet action and these movies still seem to be getting all their WWII details from Sgt. Rock, but to compare it to some of the bilge that’s previously emerged from this series, Blade was wise to cut loose.
Still as ramshackle and slapdash as these movies generally are, Blade: The Iron Cross actually manages to hold the attention more than most due to random zombies, inexplicable nude puppet flirting and the presence of its coolest character taking the spotlight for himself. This Blade-led incarnation of the franchise may not be particularly sharp, but it certainly ain’t dull either…
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