When 11 year old Juliet stubs her toe on a loose floorboard, she unwittingly sets off a series of mysterious events. A faint noise and an unusual glow seeping through the cracks capture her curiosity. But as she investigates, Juliet finds herself pulled into a chilling, otherworldly encounter.
Horror Short Sunday is here again, and this time we’re taking a look at The Littles! A fun little horror short mixing live action with stop motion animation.
Director: Andrew Duplessie Writer: Andrew Duplessie Country & year: USA, 2025 Actors: Violet McGraw, Janel Parrish, Dominic Sherwood IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt37432997/
Enter production hell that is The Primevals, fifty years in the making that even outlived its creator. Yes, this dream passion project about evil lizard people already started way back in the late 1960s by stop-motion animators David Allen, Jim Danforth and visual artist Dennis Muren. The project went through several pre-productions throughout the 70s and 80s with several scripts and titles, such as The Glacial Empire and Primordium: The Arctic World. The British horror studio Hammer Films was interested in the project at one time in the 1970s, but it fell through due to creative differences. In 1978, David Allen met film producer Charles Band where he pitched the concept with the new title The Primevals, but again, it fizzled out because of reasons.
In the meantime, David Allen started to work with Charles Band with stop-motion effects in films such as Laserblast, The Dungeonmaster, Dolls, Puppet Master, Subspecies and Bride of The Re-Animator. He also worked in bigger productions like The Howling, Willow and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. So even though the name David Allen doesn’t ring any bells, and you’re a kid of the ’80s and ’90s, you’ve surely seen some of his standout work. Then the 1990s came and David Allen still refused to give up The Primevals, because the ’90s was after all the decade of optimism. And after Charles Band had some great success with his new-established company Full Moon, much thanks to a distribution deal with Paramount Home Video, he finally decided to produce the film. This would also be the most expensive and ambitious Full Moon film to date. The principal photography for The Primevals was completed in Romania in 1994 with some scenes shot in the Dolomites mountains in Italy, and the project finally seemed to reach the light outside the tunnel.
Then came post-production hell, a lot due to Full Moon ending their collab with Paramount Home Video and the money dried out. Allen did what he could to finish the project in his sparetime for the next five years until the pull got plugged when Allen died of cancer in 1999, age 54. RIP. Fast-forward to 2018 when Charles Band launched an Indiego campaign to collect over $40,000 to get the film finished once and for all. The post-production was then handed over to stop-motion animator Kent Burton and a small team of visual effects artists. The film was finally released in 2023 at the Fantasia Film Festival. The Primevals is now available on DVD/Blu-ray and Full Moon Streaming. Also check out the making-of documentary Lost To Time: Unearthing The Primevals.
So… the plot goes like this: We start off somewhere in a snowy mountains in Tibet where some locals fight against a big yeti, in pure Ray Harryhausen-style. After they defeat the yeti it gets taxidermied and brought to a University, and a small team of scientists go on an expedition to Nepal to search for its origin. The team is led by Matt Connor and the anthropologist Dr. Claire Collier, and they’re not the most interesting people to follow. But the plot thickens when they arrive in Tibet and discovers a mysterious futuristic-looking tower in the mountain. And then they suddenly fall through the ground after a quick avalanche and find themselves in a grotto. Luckily for them the entrance is not far away which leads them to a another pre-historic dimension, not so unlike what we saw in Nazis at the Center of the Earth (2012). But instead of nazis we have stop-motion lizards, aliens and other weird stuff. Good luck, have fun and don’t die.
I have to admit that I didn’t know about this project until recently, which to my understanding have been closely followed by more die hard Full Moon fans throughout the years. As going in more blind minus the hype and the anticipation, other than it looked interesting enough judging by the trailer, I’d say: It’s fine. It’s more impressive on the technical aspect than scriptwise. Some of the set-designs, matte paintings and use of miniatures look pretty remarkable, and you can also tell that every single penny was put on screen in terms of production value. The use of CGI, which there is very little of are added when necessary, just as it should. The element, besides the stop-motion, that gave me some extra tickle on the nostalgia bones, were the underground castles, that took me back to films like The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958). This is more or less a throwback film to a bygone era, as much as it is a passion project to showcase Allen’s love for stop-motion on the most epic scale he was able to reach. The sad thing is that he never got the chance to see the final product of his own magnum opus. What can you say… life’s not fair.
Then you have the human characters which are nothing much to speak about. It’s wooden and by default at its best, like most of Full Moon films where the stop-motion creatures have way more emotions than the actors. There’s some dead meat here and a lot of talking and exposition since the budget never reached the lengths to fully flesh out the pretty over-ambitious story on a visual standpoint. A very common issue when we have a concept that would need a bigger boat to reach the full potential. That said, the third act really pays it off with some fun stop-motion action, actors in ape/monkey costumes and more, and has overall enough of the retro charm to spark some classic sense of wonder that will make you feel like a kid again.
Director: David Allen Writers: David Allen, Randall William Cook Country & year: USA/Romania, 1994-2023 Actors: Juliet Mills, Richard Joseph Paul, Leon Russom, Walker Brandt, Tai Thai, Eric Steinberg, Robert Cornthwaite, Dolph Scott, Kevin Mangold, Jeffrey S. Farley, Billy Scudder IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9352178/
MIRA is a stop motion-animated short following the story of a young and talented accordionist as she caters to a charismatic water demon whose interests lie in harming and manipulating others for her own success and personal gain.
While Horror Ghouls are taking a short break (we’ll be back with new reviews on March 10th) we’re still going on with the Horror Short Sundays. This time we’re taking a look at Mira, a beautiful and bizarre stop motion horror short!
Director: Eva Louise Hall Writer: Eva Louise Hall Country & year: USA, 2023 Actors: Vanessa Severo, Jessica Paige, Ava Armstrong IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt21033992/
A stop motion animation adaptation from the most famous novel by Edgar Allan Poe: The Black Cat.
Horror Short Sunday is here, and this time we’re visiting the world of stop-motion horror and taking a look at The Black ReCat. A fun animated horror short based on Edgar Allan Poe’s famous story, made by animator Paolo Gaudio.
Director: Paolo Gaudio Writer: Paolo Gaudio, Edgar Allan Poe Country & year: Italy, 2022 IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt20241144/
Les Hackel is a guy who has just been dumped by his girlfriend, and has to live with his parents which includes a nosy and nagging mother. And of course, the “whatever mom says“ kind of dad. On top of that, he works at a dead-end job. Les hates his life, but of course he does the one thing that will surely make his life even more miserable: drowning his sorrows in a bottle. Yup, Les has got a severe alcohol problem as well. When your life is like an open wound, the sweet temporary relief of alcohol is all too tempting, but in the end it’s just making everything much, much worse. Les is apparently smart enough to have realized that, as he’s trying to sober up…but that’s never an easy task, of course. Then one night, he discovers a fresh incision in his neck. He gets a call from his buddy Danny, who’s also got the same incision in his neck, and he says to Les that someone has implanted a bomb inside them. Danny gets a mission on his phone, but refuses to comply…and his head goes BOOM! That, at least, proves to Les that the bomb stuff is all too real. He also starts getting messages with demands to carry out several missions, always with deadly results. As the violence escalates around Les, he tries to find out what is really going on in a world that seems to have gone completely insane.
Abruptio is an adult puppet Sci-Fi horror film from 2023, which was written, edited and directed by Evan Marlowe and produced by Kerry Marlowe. It screened at several festivals, and won 21 awards. The movie stars several well-known actors here for the voices of the puppets, including Robert Englund, Jordan Peele, and Sid Haig in his final film before his death in 2019. And yes, the movie was released in 2023, but the voice recordings started on May 23, 2015, and wrapped on December 2, 2017. A passion-project, for sure, where Marlowe mentioned in an interview with Dread Central that the very first idea for using puppets in this film came from a dream he had about everyone having turned into puppets. Dreams can, for sure, be quite the inspiration!
The puppets in this movie really belongs in the uncanny valley area, where some of them look like pure nightmare fuel. The puppetry is mixed with part live action, giving everything a really weird and surreal vibe. It’s a bit reminiscent of the British puppet show Spitting Image, but whereas the puppets in that show are pure comedy caricatures, the puppets in Abruptio leans more towards being outright grotesque. And it definitely works on establishing the otherworldly, sick tone. Aside from the visuals, the whole plot of the film feels like a fever-induced nightmare, and we start to expect that the film is also leading up to a certain reveal. We do get more than a few little snippets of information from the very start of the movie, which immediately makes you question what Les is actually experiencing and what significance everything has. I don’t want to spoil too much here, but even if you can more or less guess what the movie is leading up to from early on, the ride surely is an outlandish one.
Abruptio is, for sure, a one-of-a-kind horror movie. If you want something bizarre and different, give this one a watch!
Writer and director: Evan Marlowe Country & year: USA, 2023 Voice actors: James Marsters, Christopher McDonald, Hana Mae Lee, Jordan Peele, Robert Englund, Sid Haig, Darren Darnborough, Rich Fulcher, Sohm Kapila, Patrick Cavanaugh, Carole Ruggier, John Wuchte IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3963226/
This wild, crazy, silly little flick starts with an introduction of a lone trapper who calls himself the Guardian, played by some dude with schlocky old makeup that looks like dried mud. He tells us the story with a raspy Robert Englund-ish voiceover where he once upon a time came into a battle with none other than the mythical snow beast Wendigo at Manitou Island in Michigan. And this island is no joke as it has a snowy mountain shaped like a human skull. C o o l.
After he defeated the beast, he dedicated the rest of his life to protecting the world from its resurrection, like a Sentinel, if you will. And by doing so, he marks the beast’s burial ground with a circle of skulls of the victims to create a spiritual shield. Clever. But, of course, if the circle is ever broken, he’ll be reborn and more powerful than ever. So there’s no time to retire.
The Guardian is now a hundred years old and lives as a hermit in his small cabin to guard the sacred burial ground. Too bad that the old fool never thought of having a loaded shotgun, just in case. Because this is America, after all, where there’s not only Wendigos and other fairytale monsters to be highly aware of. And the ones to come here and ruin his life’s work and screw everything up, is none other than two trigger-happy hunters in the holy name of the Second Amendment. One of them, the most trigger-happy one, is played by Ron Asheton, the guitarist and co-founder of the legendary rock band The Stooges. And speaking of: the whole soundtrack is blasted with rock music from obscure artists. Because I can’t proudly say that I’ve ever heard of Elvis Hitler. No songs from Iggy Pop here, though. Anyway: They shoot one of the skulls that breaks the circle before shooting the old man.
His final words are The circle … has been … broken. The wind … whispers. Wendigo… God bless, thank for your service and rest in peace. It’s full nonstop B-movie showtime from here on as the Guardian’s body decomposes in some classic stop-motion fashion (just like we saw in the first Evil Dead from 1984) before his possessed skeleton attacks the hunters. They cut the skeleton’s head of with an axe, but then comes a big hand and grabs one of the hunters who ends up decapitated. Back on the mainland the young woman Sandy gets her beauty sleep interrupted when the ghost of the Guardian gives her a visit to pass her the torch. She gets on a plane to the island to close the circle, and her job gets more complicated when a group of drunk guys having a party in a cabin ends up conjuring the wendigo from a ghoulish shapeshifter with a wig to his full glory form.
We also have a chili stew that turns into a monster. And I should be careful with my words from here on as I drink chili beer as I’m writing this …
Frostbiter: The Wrath of the Wendigo was made sometime in the late 1980s after a group of friends got a complete life-changer after watching Evil Dead II and wanted to become filmmakers themselves. And who wouldn’t, after watching that film for the first time, whether you’re 14 or an old fart. The film collected dust for some years after Troma Entertainment finally came to the rescue and gave it a VHS distribution in 1995. In Japan, the film was released under the title Shiryo no harawata (which is simply translated as Evil Dead) to cash-in on Sam Raimi’s trilogy, in some good old shameless Italian style. The true Japanese counterpart to Evil Dead, however, was released around the same time with the colorful title Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell.
The love and homage to Evil Dead really shines through where they do their best to imitate the distinct loose camerawork and chaotic atmosphere. The Troma vibe is also all over the place, though, so don’t expect any creep factor. Instead we have full on dumb, silly comedy performed by a handful of enthusiastic amateur actors who obviously had a blast. The dialogues are even dumber. Fun stuff, in other words, to spend with tacos and beer on a Friday night. There’s also a lot of ambitions in the effects’ apartment with some cute miniature sets, matte paintings, prosthetic effects, and of course the Wendigo monster itself, that could be straight from a Ray Harryhausen film. Some really impressive work here, for sure, where every penny of the shoe-string budget was wisely spent. The audio mixing has some serious issues, though, as the music drowns out the dialogues. So thanks for the subtitles.
The film was recently released on Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome and could be conjured on, yes, you guessed it – Tubi.
Director: Tom Chaney Writers: Tom Chaney, Rick Cioffi, Steve Quick Country & year: USA, 1995 Actors: Ron Asheton, Lori Baker, Patrick Butler, Devlin Burton, Tom Franks, Alan Madlane, John Bussard IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116371/
Young Judy has brought along her beloved teddybear, Teddy, on a trip together with her father and stepmother. And Teddy is pretty much the only comfort she’s got, as both her father and stepmother sees her as nothing but an inconvenience. A thunderstorm leaves them stranded as their car gets stuck, and in frustration the stepmother takes Teddy from Judy and throws him far into the bushes, where Judy can’t get to him. This then leads to a strange scene where Judy actually imagines that Teddy comes back as a giant monster-teddy and kills both her stepmother and her father. Yeah, there ain’t any happy family vibes to find around here, that’s for sure, but who can really blame the little girl, both her stepmother and her father are assholes.
The trio ends up seeking shelter by getting into a nearby mansion, owned by a charming elderly couple named Gabriel and Hilary Hartwicke. The couple immediately takes to young Judy, and when learning that she “lost“ her teddybear, Gabriel gives her a Jester-doll whose name is Mr. Punch. Then, three more people also arrive at the mansion, seeking shelter from the weather: Ralph, a very kind-hearted dude who maybe suffers from being a tad bit naive, and two hitchhikers named Isabel and Enid, who are two more additions to the asshole-group. So, we have an innocent little girl, a nice man with a good heart, and four douchebags who are now invited to stay by the elderly couple, who are both dollmakers. The mansion is filled with toys and dolls, but these soon prove to be anything but harmless.
Dolls is a horror film from 1987, directed by Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Castle Freak), written by Ed Naha, and produced by Charles Band and Brian Yuzna through Empire Pictures. The story was inspired by a book called The Uses of Enchantment, by Brunio Bettelheim. The film was shot in Italy at Empire Studios, prior to the director’s next film From Beyond. However, due to all the effects for the dolls that were added in post-production, the movie wasn’t released until almost a year later.
Now, what could possibly be the highlight in a movie from the 80’s titled Dolls? Take a wild guess. This was released before any Child Play‘s, and way before any Annabelle‘s. One could look at it as a little precursor to a certain film series involving puppets, though: the Puppet Master franchise, where the first movie was released in 1989. Because this movie, just like the Puppet Master films, uses a mix of stop motion animation, puppets and animatronics for the dolls by David W. Allen, who worked on special effects for numerous films and especially several Empire/Full Moon movies. He unfortunately died from cancer in 1999, and had been intermittently working on stop motion effects for a film called The Primevals, which was actually his own production, a true passion project of his. Despite seeming like what would be a lost project for so many years, The Primevals was actually completed and released in 2023.
There aren’t any big names on the cast list here, but the actors are a mix of people whom you may have seen in other movies and TV Series, so it’s far from being a no-name actors movie either. The one playing Isabel for example, is Bunty Bailey, who plays the girl in the famous music video for the Norwegian pop group A-Ha’s Take on Me from 1985. Dolls was her feature film debut. Their performances are solid enough for a movie like this, which is overall childishly cheesy and with that strange tone you mostly only find in movies made during the 80’s. It’s whimsical and slightly goofy, and the effects for the dolls and puppets are of course the raison d’être for the movie.
Despite being a pretty fun movie, Dolls wasn’t well received by the viewers, and the fans of Stuart Gordon in particular thought it was tame and lacking in gore compared to his previous works. Well…this one’s quite different for sure, where despite the little bit of gore there is it could have been a cute little horror movie for kids. It’s charming in its own way, and overall a fun little film where the baddies gets their comeuppance and the goodies can have their happily ever after.
Stuart Gordon was initially interested on making a sequel for the film, but that never came to be.
Director: Stuart Gordon Writer: Ed Naha Country & year: USA/Italy, 1986 Actors: Ian Patrick Williams, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, Carrie Lorraine, Guy Rolfe, Hilary Mason, Bunty Bailey, Cassie Stuart, Stephen Lee IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092906/
And now it’s getting really silly, if it hasn’t gotten already. In Puppet Master 4 we get our ass back to the Bodega Bay Inn with a new timeline where we get introduced to yet more meat suit balloons. And like the previous film, the puppets are the good guys. So, who’s the baddies here you’d ask? Say HELLO to the demon Lord Sutekh, who’s not some obscure former member of the metal band Gwar, but the ruler of Hell, the Prime Evil himself. The intro sequence where we see his stark color contrasted underground chamber as he sits on his throne surrounded with the most expensive Halloween decorations the budget allowed, not to mention the several piles of human skulls stacked around, surely grabs one’s attention. And as we go back and forth to this set, it’s the most memorable aspect of the film just by how over the top, cheesy and cartoonish it is. It’s something straight out from an 80s Saturday Morning Cartoon, and as a kid of the 80s myself there’s certainly some nostalgic strings to be pulled here, no pun intended.
Meanwhile at Bodega Bay Inn we meet the young scientist Rick who, among his girlfriend and some other friends, discover the secrets of Toulon’s work with the puppets and the Elixir of Life, the whole package. A lot of nonsensical BS happens with an unfocused script with as much direction like a Russian drunk driver on a regular thursday afternoon, but the premise is that the demon lord we saw in the beginning wants the elixir so he can do whatever. Since he can’t leave his domain he sends a couple of Totems, or just simply Demon Puppets, to invade Bodega Bay Inn and get the treasure. Toulon’s puppets have to save the day.
Toulon pops up here and there as a bizarre hologram as he gives some advice. We have some quick lackluster kills with some leftover cranberry juice as blood. The human characters are just meh and generic. I was hoping to see more of the demon lord and if he was ever to leave the depths and enter the surface to raise hell and mayhem. Never did, and that’s my biggest disappointment when they could do more of this character. Maybe it was a matter of budget which I would guess they blew most of on the demon lord’s set-design, or all the five who wrote the script couldn’t come to any agreements on what to do with him.
The final act is the most entertaining when it’s basically Puppets vs. Hellpuppets. Naive, dumb, innocent fun with a great dose of lighthearted puppet action, some pretty decent stop-motion and lively camerawork. Probably more fun for the kids and given that’s there’s no tits or other sleazy nudity here, and the gore is almost non existent, this is as close it can get to being family friendly. There’s also a weird Frankenstein reference thrown in here which leads to a robopuppet shooting lightning from his head. And the good old classic hand-drawn lightning effects will never, ever get old.
And then the film ends with a to be continued …
… and the film could just as well have ended there because there isn’t much of a continuation in Puppet Master 5 which was made simultaneously with this one. It’s the same movie all over again with little to no pay off. More scenes of puppet action while the demon lord just goofs around in his underworld basement sniffing his own sulfur-smelling farts. The fifth film was also promoted as The Final Chapter, and ha-ha, there’s only ten more films. As a first time watcher of this franchise I was a little surprised it was able to barely keep afloat to this point, because it goes straight down the toilet from here on… and I just leave it at that. All films (except for two) are available at fullmoonfeatures.com. Have fun and good luck.
Director: Jeff Burr Writers: Todd Henschell, Steven E. Carr, Jo Duffy, Douglas Aarniokoski, Keith Payson Country & year: USA, 1993 Actors: Blade, Pinhead, Jester, Tunneler, Six Shooter, Decapitron, Gordon Currie, Chandra West, Ash Adams, Teresa Hill, Guy Rolfe, Felton Perry, Stacie Randall, Michael Shamus Wiles, Dan Zukovic IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0107899/
In the third installment of the Puppet Master franchise we go back to year 1941 and the place is Berlin, Germany where we meet André Toulon who works at the local puppetry theatre. And already here is the continuity off the rails when we learned in the first film that Toulon committed suicide in 1939 to escape the nazis, yet here is he alive and well and looks even younger. And if you thought this continuity blunder was bad, then you haven’t seen Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich where Toulon is suddenly an evil, unearthly and monstrous nazi himself. Oh my. Anyways… Toulon is also a happy man with his wife Elsa and it’s all flowers and rainbows until a nazi spy gets his attention on Toulon’s mysterious green serum, Elixir of Life, which wakes his puppets to life. And the nazi colonel Major Kraus (Richard Lynch) is very interested in that serum so he can resurrect dead bodies to use as human shields at the battlefront. With a group of Gestapos they invade his home and Kraus shoots and kills Elsa like the main villain he is. Toulon manages to escape and settles down in a hiding place where he’ll plan his way to avenge his wife and kill those nazi pigs with the help of his loyal puppets.
Although ocean air is always good for your health it was refreshing to get a break from the same locations on Bodega Bay Inn to the dark smogfilled streets of Berlin. And as Full Moon’s very limited resources to do a WW2 film is pretty far-fetched, they surprisingly nailed it. The sets, the costumes, the noir atmosphere is spot on. I was also surprised how the stock-footage of a crowded WW2 Berlin was able to blend in.
Then of course we have the puppets themselves which from here on and onward are actually the good-guys. Don’t know what I actually feel about that but as long they fight against nazis I’m in for it. And yes, nazis gets killed here in a straight-forward fashion, but like the second film and the upcoming ones, the kills are pretty tame and underwhelming. Some blood here and there and that’s pretty much it. Oh yeah, some quick shots of bare breasts, I almost forgot to mention. The new puppet, Six Shooter, is fun to watch though. He’s some dark bizarro version of Woody from Toy Story.
Puppet Master III is also regarded as the best one in the series and I agree. The script is on its most cohesive, more steady pacing and more interesting characters to pay attention to. The strongest card here is the main villain, Major Kraus, played by the charismatic cult legend Richard Lynch, the most top-tier actor you’ll witness in the whole franchise. It also have the unique whimsical Full Moon trademark tone from first two perfectly balanced with the more serious undertone, which adds to the odd entertainment value.
Director: David DeCoteau Writers: Charles Band, C. Courtney Joyner, David Schmoeller Country & year: USA, 1991 Actors: Blade, Pinhead, Jester, Tunneler, Six Shooter, Leech Woman, Djinn, Mephisto, Guy Rolfe, Richard Lynch, Ian Abercrombie, Kristopher Logan, Aron Eisenberg, Walter Gotell, Sarah Douglas IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0102728/
We’re in the gloomy smoke machine-filled Shady Oaks Cemetery where the puppets pour some green liquid on André Toulon’s grave to finally resurrect their beloved master. After this atmospheric and eerie opening, we get introduced to the new characters, a group of young ghost hunters who are sent to the Bodega Inn to investigate the murder of Megan Gallagher, the wife of the previous owner.
One of the investigators go missing after getting kidnapped by two puppets and, ah shit, here we go again. There’s a weird side-plot with a redneck couple that lives in a shack not so far from the hotel, and they’re there only to get body counted. A soft-spoken man of mystery with a Romanian accent shows up at the hotel who looks like a mix of The Invinsible Man and Héctor from the Spanish Sci-Fi thriller Timecrimes. And who could that possibly be and why is he so interested in collecting brain tissues as people at the hotel starts to get killed? Huh.. Only Scooby-Doo would know…
Although this could also easily be a remake of the first one, there are some new ideas here to make some progress in the franchise which later goes more back-and-forth in the timeline. We have some flashbacks as we dip more into the lore and backstory of André Toulon and how he and his wife came across the Elixir of Life somewhere in Egypt. The characters are mostly disposable meat balloons with their own personal drama, but they’re at least far more awake and in presence than they were in the first one.
But the star here is the new puppet Torch which, you’ve already guessed, torches his victims to hell with a flamethrower as a hand. Totally rad! And then we have a quick classic “paused movie moment“ with three seconds of bare tits. The kills are not to get too exited about. We have a lackluster scene with the Tunneller who drills the skull of one of the sleeping victims, some quick knifing from Blade and the only memorable one is a woman who gets burned alive by the Torch. There’s also a scene in broad daylight where some kid encounters Torch, which cuts off before he gets roasted. No dwarfs were available for body burn, I assume. Meh! Puppet Master II is overall entertaining as long as it’s going thanks to the mysterious villain, tasty gothic visuals, gloomy and light-dimming atmosphere, the puppets themselves, catchy tunes from composer Richard Band (brother of Charles Band) but otherwise, not much that will stick to the memory.
Director: David Allen Writers: Charles Band, David Pabian, David Schmoeller Country & year: USA, 1990 Actors: Blade, Pinhead, Jester, Tunneler, Leech Woman, Torch, Djinn, Mephisto, Elizabeth Maclellan, Collin Bernsen, Steve Welles, Greg Webb, Charlie Spradling, Jeff Celentano, Nita Talbot IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0100438/
