In short: Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018)

So, it turns out that, if you put the Puppet Master franchise in the hands of people with actual talent, namely here S. Craig Zahler for the script and Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund the direction, and let them make as hog-wild an exploitation movie as they have a mind to make, you actually get that most curious of things – a highly entertaining Puppet Master film. Not surprising in a Fangoria production, this isn’t a film for everyone, but really made for an audience with a love for gory horror and the old-fashioned exploitation values of gore, tits, and wit. Good taste certainly wasn’t invited, instead we get more or less large appearances by the great Barbara Crampton, the Udo Kier, Michael Paré, Matthias Hues (soon to be controlled by Baby Hitler), and so on. Also, a score by Fabio Frizzi.

Puppet and kill-wise, this is much more packed full with incident and murder, also incidents of murder, than most other Puppet Master films, with a small army of the darn little Nazis (and in this version they are definitely Nazis, giving the the film a nice opportunity to have a more diverse cast to kill as well as saying goodbye to any tragic backstory some of the older films had for the master and his puppets) killing people in increasingly outrageous fashion. Apart from Baby Hitler Hues, one of the high points is a completely shameless killing of a pregnant woman and her unborn. Or one of the low points, if you are of a higher moral fibre than I am, probably. That particular scene is the moment that divides the people for whom this film was made from those for whom it wasn’t. If you’re me and find the whole thing funny (if “holy crap, did they just do that?” outrageous), than you’ll enjoy the rest of the film, too, if not, there’s really no shame in missing the rest of this.


Speaking of the film’s humour, this is very much a throwback to fun 80s and 90s style gore where everyone involved doesn’t take things terribly seriously but isn’t really interested in the post-Scream plague of “irony”, instead providing said fun by skirting (and overstepping) various lines. I would call it dumb fun, but there’s also so much obvious intelligence in the film’s staging, and so much energy and love put into propping up minor characters with neat details before killing them off in Zahler’s script, the “dumb” word doesn’t really apply.

In short: Mission of Justice (1992)

This Jeff Wincott vehicle with Brigitte Nielsen as the film’s big bad is a highly commendable example of US low budget martial arts nonsense, seeing as it contains fight scenes as good as they get in US martial arts films, a lead in Wincott whose acting ability is actually present while still leaving him room for actually knowing about screen martial arts too, direction by Steve Barnett that never gets in the way of the film or of itself, and enough adorable stupid nonsense to put many smiles on my face. A personal highlight among the copious silliness is Brigitte’s plan to become mayor of Los Angeles by founding her own cult of violent male vigilantes roaming the streets in very tight shirts and jeans, all the while buying TV spots with the money she gets from the inheritance of grandmas her henchpeople murder. It also involves hiring a guy with anime hair as her election manager, which would even work if not for pesky Jeff Wincott and his ass-kicking ways. Additional joys consist of Karen Sheperd looking very angry and also kicking ass, electro torture, a short encounter with a police robot, a randomly mean police sergeant who seems to hate Wincott for knowing martial arts(!?), and perhaps the best use of a stolen boxing championship belt you will find in a movie.

This really only doesn’t get a longer write-up because I’m a) sick and won’t remember anything about the film once I’m fine again (future Denis now editing this really has only the vaguest clue what this write-up’s on about) and b) Mission of Justice isn’t quite crazy enough for me to rave about it for too long. That isn’t to say that Barnett’s film isn’t crazy enough to be a real joy to watch, though – for it surely is.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,in short,martial arts,steve barnett,jeff wincott,brigitte nielsen,karen sheperd,matthias hues