Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge (1991)

Directed by: David DeCoteau | 86 minutes | fantasy, horror | Actors: Guy Rolfe, Richard Lynch, Ian Abercrombie, Kristopher Logan, Aron Eisenberg, Walter Gotell, Sarah Douglas, Matthew Faison, Michelle Bauer, Jasmine Totschek, Eduard Will, John Regis

Toys and horror movies go very well together. The idea that something as childishly innocent as a doll has murderous traits sends many people shivers. This fact formed the basis of Full Moon Features: the film company of Charles Band. This American came up with the very lucrative ‘The Puppet Master’ franchise. In this series of cheaply made horror films, apparently harmless children’s entertainment turns out to be capable of murder. Not because the special dolls would like to, but because their owner Toulon (Guy Rolfe) has bewitched them with an Egyptian curse. Well.

After the success of ‘Child’s Play’ from 1988, in which a murderous doll left a lot of corpses behind, Band saw the benefit of a similar concept. A year later, the first ‘Puppet Master’ film appeared in the video store. The idea caught on and a franchise was born. In 2018, twelve(!) sequels have appeared. Of course, the quality of this budget series is ‘variable’ to say the least.

In ‘Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge’ you meet puppeteer Toulon (Rolfe). This man tries to survive World War II by keeping calm and hiding his demon dolls from the world. When the Nazis learn of Toulon’s Egyptian formula for bringing his dolls to life, they break into his house and kill his wife. In addition, they also steal his beloved dolls. What the villains don’t know is that the revengeful Toulon can also control his creations from a distance to kill. Time for revenge!

You don’t watch this film series because of the philosophical layer, the intelligent story or the emotional acting. The game is really really bad. The Nazis speak English with a German accent (read: how Americans think a German accent sounds) and most of the cast has clearly not gotten beyond the local school stage. Guy Rolfe is actually the only famous actor and he draws the film to himself when he is on screen. As soon as this actor is not in the picture, the level drops noticeably.

Creatively designed murder dolls (a six-armed cowboy, some sort of mummy dressed in black and a Thunderbird-esque creature with a drill for headgear in this case) are the raison d’être of this enjoyable pulp. The stop motion animation is quite nice and the kills look decent. It is obvious that the budget was quite scanty, because the dolls only appear sparingly in motion. Yet their performance warrants a viewing. Lovers of cult films and cheesy horror from the eighties and nineties can have fun with this film. Part three is one of the best in the series.