Even the most hardiest of puppets need to take some down time every once in a while – but for a hot minute there it looked like that the gang of Blade, Pinhead, Jester and the rest had finally retired after the exhausting (for both them and us) clash with the Demonic Toys back in 2004. Technically – if anyone’s actually counting – that wasn’t even an official Puppet Master film as it was bankrolled by the SyFy channel to premier on their own channel without direct involvement from franchise overseer Charles Band.
However, it seens that the Puppet weren’t done yet as they not only surged back into life after a six year absence, but they delivered the first in a whole new trilogy of movies that lay within the belly of the greater franchise like a confident ball of trapped wind. But in a series that has such a convoluted continuity it required a clip show to try and straighten it all out (it didn’t), where could you possibly take the puppets now? Simple: back to their glory days as they once again target the Nazis – but reign in those expectations; this time they’re fighting with a home field advantage.
Zipping back to the beginning of the very first Puppet Master movie, we retread the final moments of André Toulon (the William Hickey version) as he hides his miraculous murder-muppets in a hidey-hole at the Bodega Bay Inn and then blows his elderly brains out to avoid dealing with a couple of Nazi agents who were hoping to claim the dolls for Hitler’s third reich. However, what we didn’t know is the incident is witnessed by Danny Coogan, a polio sufferer whose limp has kept him out from enlisting to fight the Germans and instead has been staying with his uncle at the inn to help him build chairs. The fact that he’s unfit to enlist is something of a sore spot for Danny, especially as his older brother, Don, is shipping out soon. But after searching Toulon’s room, he discovers the hidden trunk full of puppets and takes them home to his mother’s apartment in Chinatown.
But while he reunites with his family as his brother indulges in spots of casual rascism, dark forces are merging to spell doom for the American war effort. It seems that the Nazis who bungled the Toulon mission have teamed up with a group of Japanese saboteurs led by the flamboyant sinister Ozu. Their target is the munitions plant where Danny’s girlfriend, Beth, works and going under cover as a baseball loving employee, the Axis agent known as Max strives to plant a bomb to seriously hamper America’s ability to make bombs.
After stumbling upon the plot and figuring out how to reanimate Toulon’s puppets, Danny decides to use the lethal playthings to strike a blow for the good old U S of A and clear out the saboteurs with dolls that drill skulls and vomit leeches – but unbeknownst to Danny, it’ll come at a tremendous cost and cause the birth of a brand new puppet – the ethnically questionable Ninja.
If anyone has a right to be increasingly cynical about the fact that the Puppet Master franchise has seemingly endless vestiges of life, it should be me as this is now the ninth(!) installment I’ve had to trawl through for this website. However, in a bizarre twist of fate, I found that despite some usual red flags popping up from the franchise (the extensive use of stock footage from a previous movie; no stop-motion; David DeCoteau directing), Puppet Master: Axis Of Evil comes dangerously close to being watchable. In fact, beyond that, at times it’s even within strangling distance of actually being good. It isn’t of course, but in going back to a wartime setting, Axis Of Evil not only manages to bore itself it’s own timeline to operate in, but actually (for once) doesn’t yank continuity off the table like a shitty magician trying the old tablecloth pull trick.
For a start, it’s strange to have a Puppet Master with an actual vision and while I’ve given DeCoteau stick in the past, Puppet Master III, with its World War II trappings proves to be a standout in the franchise for trying something rather daring. Going back to that well and connecting it surprisingly organically to the opening of the original movie proves to not only be a smart move, but genuinely proves to revitalise the franchise a little by delving fulling into the concepts of puppets vs Nazis. However, even the fact that the film doesn’t even leave the United States doesn’t prove to be a problem as the idea of the puppets looking horns with German and Japanese saboteurs is legitimately a cool, pulpy concept that the movie fully embraces. Obviously I would have loved to see Blade, Tunneler et al scampering across the field of battle at Dunkirk or storming a Nazi stronghold like some weird, doll version of Where Eagles Dare, but obviously budgets are tight at Full Moon, so I’ll take what I can get.
However, while the basics of Axis Of Evil are surprisingly solid, things fall down a bit when it comes to the execution. Firstly, the whole thing comes across as a bit racist on more than one occasion, especially when it comes to the treatment of the inscrutible Japanese villains or some of the opinions of the character of Don. Yes, it’s very likely that a young American man going off to war in the 30s would loudly deride other ethnicities and openly claim not to know the difference between the Japanese and the Chinese, but why does that have to be the only factual bit of period detail that the movie chooses to stick to? Elsewhere, we find that despite a renewed vigour in the presentation (even composer Richard Band has given the theme tune a little tweak), some of the acting is still painfully of the just-hired-out-of-acting-class variety. Levi Fiehler does OK as our lead, but everybody else flounders at making even the simplest of dialogue sound even remotely believable.
Once again it’s down to the puppets to steal the show and while some of the lackluster puppeteering gives them the appearance of being slightly arthritic and some of their updated designs look a little weird (a bloated faced Tunneler in particular looks like he’s just returned from drying out at the Betty Ford Clinic) it’s still fun to watch them do the business. However, even the thrill of watching Leech Woman finally be back in action wretching up bloodsuckers is diminished somewhat by the introduction of Ninja. Massively stereotypical (hurls throwing stars; glowing narrow eyes) and given the confounding backstory of containing the soul of the notoriously anti-Japanese Don after he’s murdered, I’m not actually sure if the point of him is a redemption story or just some awkward joke that doesn’t really come off. Either way, the super abrupt, cliff hanger ending which paves the way for a new trilogy kind of ruins any of the good feelings that were starting to form whenever Don’s politics weren’t getting aired.
A promising new start for the Puppet Master gang finds fresh life in a sort of Boy’s Own, WWII comic strip with massacring maquettes. However, it’s over eager rush to tease a sequel and a bunch of problematic stereotypes leaves Axis Of Evil feeling both like a new jumping on point and a missed opportunity all in one. Talk about having an Axis to grind…
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