Puppet Master: Axis of Evil 2010 - REVIEW

Everyone loves low budget cheesy horror movies right? If not, why not? You have all the elements of a great movie. They are scary (sometimes) there is comedy and average to bad acting. Charles Band always manages to include all of these factors in his movies which always makes for a good hour and a half of horror movie fun.

The year is 1939 and Andre Toulon (William Hickey) has just committed suicide. The Nazis discover this in his hotel room and rummage the room looking for his coveted puppets to find the secret of bringing the inanimate to life. The Nazis walk out of Toulon’s room and one bumps into a hotel worker by the name of Danny Coogen (Levi Fiehler). Danny is a craftsman at the hotel and was going to discuss his art with Toulon, only to find him dead. Danny finds the puppets and takes them home, but has no idea what he has involved himself in. Danny finds himself in the middle of WWII in America as Germans and Japanese conspire together to blow up the American bomb manufacturing plant that his girlfriend Beth (Jenna Gallaher) works at.

The main puppets appearing in the movie is Tunneler, Pinhead, Blade, and Jester. A new puppet is also introduced in this installment named Ninja. Being a Puppet Master movie the important acting is not done by the human cast it is the puppets which in Axis of Evil seem to steal the show (mainly because the other characters are not as likable as in the past Puppet Master installments in the series).

While Axis of Evil is in a long line of direct to video releases from Full Moon Features, it does have some merit. The movie is left wide open for part X to pick up, which is in production as we speak. I am a fan of low budget, direct to video movies, with Full Moon Features movies being my favorite of this category. Charles Band has made some masterful movies over the years, and Axis of Evil is no exception. I’m sure when a series gets to number 9 ideas begin to run out. Not the case here. The storyline is well thought out and pretty darn clever to branch off to another storyline were the first movie starts. So make some popcorn, relax and enjoy watching the Nazi’s getting whipped up on.

Reviewed by J.R. Watkins