Rating: 
Summary: JULIAN JAYNES WOULD HAVE LOVED IT
Review: I hadn't heard of the 'Puppet Master' series at all when this came on the SFI channel recently. 'Retro' has craftsmanship from the very start, with good acting and well-done scene-setting. Nonetheless I was startled at the high quality of the depiction of the evil followers of Zutek, a forgotten god of Ancient Egyptian times. They spoke and comported themselves exactly like the 'Bicameral Man' of Julian Jaynes book 'Origin of Consciousness..'. When Zutek spoke to them, the hypnotic power of that voice was excellently rendered. I don't know if the producers had read Jaynes, but the highly expert way they did the villains is typical of the entire movie. The puppets themselves, mere pieces of painted wood bobbing up and down, became powerful beings just via a few grunts and some very effectively rythmic music. This is one of the few movies I wanted to see again right away, and to own on DVD.
Rating:
Summary: JULIAN JAYNES WOULD HAVE LOVED IT
Review: I hadn't heard of the 'Puppet Master' series at all when this came on the SFI channel recently. 'Retro' has craftsmanship from the very start, with good acting and well-done scene-setting. Nonetheless I was startled at the high quality of the depiction of the evil followers of Zutek, a forgotten god of Ancient Egyptian times. They spoke and comported themselves exactly like the 'Bicameral Man' of Julian Jaynes book 'Origin of Consciousness..'. When Zutek spoke to them, the hypnotic power of that voice was excellently rendered. I don't know if the producers had read Jaynes, but the highly expert way they did the villains is typical of the entire movie. The puppets themselves, mere pieces of painted wood bobbing up and down, became powerful beings just via a few grunts and some very effectively rythmic music. This is one of the few movies I wanted to see again right away, and to own on DVD.
Rating: 
Summary: BIG HYPE, BIG FLOP
Review: I HAVE SEEN ALL THE PUPPET MASTER MOVIES AND LOVED EVERYONE OF THEM, BUT I HAVE TO SAY RETRO PUPPET MASTER WAS HORRIBLE. I WAITED 4 MONTHS TO SEE THIS MOVIE AND I THOUGHT IT WAS A COMPLETE WASTE. SURE THEY GET THE STORY ACROSS, BUT I LIKE TO SEE SOME KILLING AND ACTION. THIS MOVIE SUCKED. RENT IT, DONT BUY IT.
Rating:
Summary: Bad attempt at revitalizing the saga
Review: I personally think the series should have ended at Puppetmaster III. Unfortunately, I'm not the people in charge of the films, so we get things like this.When it opened up with the aging Toulon (THE puppetmaster, in my opinion) and his friends, I had high hopes. However, he's not here to act he's here to tell a story about his younger days. You see, a long time ago a bunch of white people pretending to be Arabs stole the secret to revitalizing life from Sutek (who, if I remember my Egyptian lore, was banished to another world and has no powers any way). Sutek gets mad and revives three mummies to catch the Egyptian that stole it. These mummies are perhaps the craziest part of this movie. For one, they annoyingly repeat each other's sentences. For another, they act and look like the Agents from the first Matrix (even with one leader mummy, the "Agent Smith" of the Undead). Also, they're not that scary. They kill you by basically pointing at you. This means no gore and no real excitement. Any way, back to the puppets: Toulon originally was head of a puppet troupe entertaining the wealthy of 19th century Paris. The Egyptian comes and teaches Toulon the secret of revitalization. This isn't all that great - the mummies come to the theater and kill off all of Toulon's friends looking for the Egyptian. Toulon finds them and puts their souls into the puppets. The mummies come and attack Toulon, but thankfully Toulon has the puppets to help. Actually, the puppets aren't all that great. One of them just kinda nips a mummy in the ankle and then gets kicked away. And that was your fight scene for the entire movie. Things just kinda happen from there...the love interest gets kidnapped from the Swiss Embassy, Toulon saves her, and then the movie up and ends. Like the reviewer before me said, the film suggests a sequal. Toulon looks to his puppets and says, "that is another story for another day." All I had to think of was, "NO GOD! NOOOOO!!!" This film had a lot of potential (leaving those stupid teenagers getting attacked by demons and going back to Toulon's story) but unfortunately it gets marred by bad scripts and acting. I might also add the special affects in this are HORRIBLE. How horrible? In one scene, you can see the hand holding one of the puppets! No I don't mean if you look hard you see a finger, I mean you can actually see a full-fledged, identifiable hand lifting a puppet up! Did the editor want to kill the movie? What would it have cost them to refilm that part? $2? Maybe a quarter?
Rating:
Summary: Sheer Junk (and I love junk movies!)
Review: I remember fondly renting the originals in the Puppet Master series when I was younger--now, years later available on DVD I was intrigued by this "new" entry in the series. Wow...what a major dissapointment! This movie is terrible...let me qualify myself by saying that I enjoy bad films, Plan 9, Astro Zombies, bad horror, etc. but his movie is BORING! They spent all their time on a boring melodrama about Toulon as a young guy. The actor who plays him is a boring, "pretty-boy" whose french accent makes you want to string him up and make him dance! The only good thing about this movie is the hot chick.... The puppets look awesome but no CGI or stop-motion from David Alan just boring real puppet action which is fine for a 5-year old but these things are supposed to be alive. Please don't waste one dime on this one, if you're curious like I was simply rent the VHS. Be warned!
Rating: 
Summary: Unimpressive
Review: I was really expecting alot more from this movie. I have seen all the Puppet Master movies, Three being my favorite. With this one only being just over 60 mins long, it didn't give itself time to develop fully into what Charles Band should have wanted. No stop motion really made the puppets look just like puppets, which I felt took away from the movie. IT all looked too staged, the puppets really did looked controlled by a person. I truly hope that Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys is alot better. Especially after Dollman vs. Demonic Toys (what a blah movie). I must say though, I love all Full Moon movies in one fashion or the other, and will continue to collect them.
Rating:
Summary: An Enjoyable Film that needed better effects work
Review: I'd agree with one of the previous reviews that says this film has an old-style (read 1930s Universal) horror movie feel to it. (Though I think "Retro Puppet Master" is a stupid title) There is really no blood and gore and little violence, but still the movie manages to be quite atmospheric, thanks in large part to the Rumanian filming location. The puppet designs are very interesting and creepy and fit the time period well. The big flaw here is the lack of stop-motion animation. The effects are sometimes laughably bad (look for Retro Pinhead "running"), as the puppets are obviously being moved around like marionettes, or being manipulated as rod puppets. The animators even admit that they didn't have the budget to do stop motion in the behind-the-scenes featurette. The "effects" seen in this movie could be done at home by anyone with a puppet, some strings, and a few sticks... Stop motion, even when done badly, gives an otherworldly and disturbing feel that this film needed. It would have been 100% better with stop motion. I hope Full Moon uses these "Retro" puppets again, but I sincerely hope they hire some stop motion animators next time around to do their quirky material justice.
Rating:
Summary: An Enjoyable Film that needed better effects work
Review: I'd agree with one of the previous reviews that says this film has an old-style (read 1930s Universal) horror movie feel to it. (Though I think "Retro Puppet Master" is a stupid title) There is really no blood and gore and little violence, but still the movie manages to be quite atmospheric, thanks in large part to the Rumanian filming location. The puppet designs are very interesting and creepy and fit the time period well. The big flaw here is the lack of stop-motion animation. The effects are sometimes laughably bad (look for Retro Pinhead "running"), as the puppets are obviously being moved around like marionettes, or being manipulated as rod puppets. The animators even admit that they didn't have the budget to do stop motion in the behind-the-scenes featurette. The "effects" seen in this movie could be done at home by anyone with a puppet, some strings, and a few sticks... Stop motion, even when done badly, gives an otherworldly and disturbing feel that this film needed. It would have been 100% better with stop motion. I hope Full Moon uses these "Retro" puppets again, but I sincerely hope they hire some stop motion animators next time around to do their quirky material justice.
Rating:
Summary: A REAL ADVENTURE
Review: I've never seen a Puppetmaster before but this was really cool. The characters were very interesting and it reminded me of a dark Titanic. The sets were cool and the effects were just right. The young Toulon had a real mysterious prescence and I loved how his tone of voice was so hush and sensitive. It was like you wanted to know him and understand his feelings. He was so boyish, and really was attractive. Some parts were a little slow, but it pays off at the end
Rating:
Summary: Retro Puppet Master
Review: If you love the traditional Puppet Master movies and their adventures. You will love Retro Puppet Master, as you explore the history of the puppets and discover how it all began. However if you have never seen a Puppet Master movie, Retro Puppet Master will give you a reason to, as you see the history you will feel a need to explore the great adventures the puppets have in their other movies.
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