Monday, October 15, 2018

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: PUPPET MASTER: AXIS OF EVIL (2010) * ½


Danny (Levi Fiehler) is a young man stricken with polio who yearns to do his part to fight the Germans in WWII.  He finds Andre Toulon’s hidden stash of killer puppets and learns the secret to bring them to life.  When Danny finds out the Germans and Japanese are plotting to blow up an American factory, he enlists the help of the puppets to stop them.

David DeCoteau is back in the director’s chair for this ninth Puppet Master flick and it’s not one of his better efforts.  Like most Puppet Master movies, Axis of Evil really struggles whenever the puppets aren’t front and center doing their thing.  That unfortunately accounts for much of the running time.  The opening sequence (which depends on extensive use of footage from the first movie) is particularly sluggish.  The scenes of Fiehler’s home life are often mawkish, especially when he’s dealing with his affliction or when he’s hanging out with his gung-ho brother.  The pacing in these scenes are rather leaden and DeCoteau does very little to help move them along.  It also doesn’t help that they contain actors who are almost as wooden as the puppets themselves.  

Speaking of the puppets, it takes seemingly forever before they finally are given a chance to shine.  These sequences taken on their own merits, aren’t bad.  The Leech Woman pukes into a guy’s sushi, Tunneller drills into a dude’s skull, and the new Ninja puppet kills people using Ninja stars.  However, there really needed to be more sequences of this caliber for Axis of Evil to have been successful.

The addition of a Japanese “Dragon Lady” villain (who is hiding out in Chinatown because “Americans can’t tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese”) gives this entry a slightly different flavor.  It’s certainly one of the better-looking Puppet Master movies as DeCoteau achieves a decent amount of period detail on a meager budget.  (We also get at least one funny, if inexplicable L.A. Confidential reference.)  Too bad the ending (which leaves the door wide open for yet another sequel) is so abrupt and unsatisfying.

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