Puppet Master, why and how you should watch them

''Political Satire is one of the hallmarks of a healthy society'' Spoken by Toulon in Puppet Master III Toulon's Revenge. Now its not often I watch a horror film and hear something said like the above which I think is so full of wisdom that it makes me stop and tip my hat to it. It was this that made me think I wanted to write a little something about the Puppet Master films. Now recently I have purchased Blue Ray releases of the first 3 Puppet Master films (as in the first 3 released) and I have to say I have enjoyed them, I had previously had a few of them on DVD and back in the past I had rented them for 50pence a night from my local video store. I see the early entries in the series as key principle players in the VHS rental horror scene but I dont think they are always rememberd by that many people or perhapse as kindly as I feel they deserve. This is where my talking about them comes in to the equation, basically I want to draw attention to these films and try to persuade you to give the series a try.

So I guess the best thing to do to start with would be to try to tell you why you should watch Puppet Master so here I go. If you were either a child of the 80's or have enjoyed other 80's horror films then you should definetly give Puppet Master a chance because it is without a doubt pure 80's horror, it just has that feeling which horror films now days dont give you, so if you havent seen it and want to see more of this kind of thing it will be right down your street. You have killer puppets, yep thats right its not one puppet you have a whole bunch of puppets and in fact who you have will vary slightly from film to film, by and large every film contains what I would refer to as the core group, but then with each new film they seem to try to throw a new puppet in with a new personality and new ways to kill. Other than laughing the puppets are largly silent but they all feel so unique and so individual in no time at all you get a feel for them and will work out who your favourate is and youll relish every moment they are on screen. You just dont get characters like this now days mostly because if a little creature or monster needs making it tends to be done on Computer and I just dont believe they have as much life to them as old fashioned props, puppetering and stop motion animation technics.

Ok so now I have tried to sell you on the films overall I guess something I need to do is to discuss the order in which to watch the Puppet Master films, Well I guess you have two orders in which you could tackle them, one would be the obvious one watching them in order of release this is helped by the first 5 of them being numberd but after this you need to know the order, the other answer is to watch the series in chronological order. In order to help you I will provide both ways of ordering the films below:

Chronological Order 

• Retro Puppet Master
• Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge
• Puppet Master: Axis of Evil
• Puppet Master X: Axis Rising
• Puppet Master: Axis Termination
• Puppetmaster
• Curse of the Puppet Master
• Puppet Master II: His Unholy Creation
• Puppet Master 4: The Demon
• Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter
• Puppet Master: The Legacy
• Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys

Release Order

• Puppet Master
• Puppet Master II: His Unholy Creation
• Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge
• Puppet Mastter 4: The Demon
• Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter
• Curse of the Puppet Master
• Retro Puppet Master
• Puppet Master the Legacy
• Puppet Master Vs Demonic Toys
• Puppet Master Axis of Evil
• Puppter Master: Axis Rising
• Puppet Master:  Axis Termination

 Now I think its important to say that these films dont have perfect continuity in fact there is one issue I can remember where a film tells you someone died in a particular year to then have a film about what he was doing 2 years latter turn up as a sequel. If your the kind of person who is going to throw your toys out of the pram because things dont line up perfectly then this might be an issue but trust me if you can just laugh at or ignore little hick ups and enjoy the films on there own merit then I think you will enjoy them.

I think its important to note that the films are not all the same idea played out again and again, sure there are Puppets in every single one and people die but the puppets are sort of the villians in some movies and the good guys in others. For example Puppet Master the original first movie is pretty much a slasher type affair, a bunch of people come to a hotel to investigate and they get picked off by the puppets who are working for there clearly evil Master, in Puppet Master 3 however the villians of the movie are the Nazi's and its the puppets who are the heroes working for there Master protecting him and helping him to seek revenge on the Nazi's for the death of his wife.

If I have pursuaded you to give the whole series a watch brilliant, if it doesnt sound like your kind of thing then that is fair enough, if your sitting on the fence and unsure then I would Recomend you pick up Puppet Master 3 as this is the one I consider to be the very best of them, if you just want to watch one to decide if there your kind of thing or not then this would be the one. It is an easy film to watch it seems to pretty much explain everything you need to know and despite having a 3 in the title it doesnt require you to enter the film with any knowledge of what has gone before in order to enjoy it.