Puppet Master: The Legacy

Puppet Master: The Legacy (2003)

1/2 (out of 4)

Ultra-cheap eighth entry in the series starts off with a woman taking Eric Weiss (the boy from PUPPET MASTER III) hostage and demanding him to tell her the secrets of the puppets. From this point on we start a whole string of flash backs to earlier films in the series with constant "looks" at the present time as the woman becomes more and more demanding. It turns out that SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT 2 isn't the cheapest horror film ever made. No, that honor goes to this installment, which runs 74-minutes and being generous I'd say that at least sixty-minutes are nothing more than clips from the previous seven movies. Die-hard fans might enjoy seeing a cut down version of the previous movies with a few new scenes added in but to me this is about as cheap as you can get and I really see no reason to applaud the cheapness of a film like this. The only reason I could see this film being important is for those people who aren't really interested in the series but want to see what "story" all of the movies told. Instead of seeing the previous seven movies you could just watch this thing and get the general idea of what the series was about. Unlike watching the previous seven movies in order, this one here would at least allow you to see the "story" in chronological order. Since the series jumped around so much none of them were in order so the clips here are as followed: RETRO, PM3, PM, PM2, PM4, PM5 and then CURSE. The new footage isn't all that well shot but the two actors aren't that bad. THE LEGACY is an ultra-cheap film that's only purpose was to milk an already dead series. With that said, two more films would follow so I'm guessing this at least made the company some money.

I'm thrown for a loop trying to think of how to write a review for Charles Band's 2003 film "Puppet Master: The Legacy." I actually, honestly cannot think of a way to summarize it. I grew up watching copies of the earlier "Puppet Master" movies behind my parent's backs (they didn't approve of the gore until I was a teenager), so when I recently got the "Puppet Master" box-set as a nostalgic gift from my father, I popped this one in, thinking it would be an interesting film.

Oh... my... god.

Words cannot describe this movie.

"Puppet Master: The Legacy" is essentially a 15-minute long short film, that is padded with about an hour of footage from the previous films, as a character explains the plot of the series to another person. Yup, that's right... this is the horror movie equivalent of a sitcom clip-show. You know? Those lame episodes where the producers would run out of money and just string together a series of clips from prior episodes, with a lame bookend scene of the characters recalling the old clips? This movie is one of those!

And what makes it even sadder- the "story" that is used to string together the clips is one of the most poorly written, insanely plotted and hilariously cheaply-shot "plots" I've ever seen.

The abundance of old footage actually serves two purposes, to actually be fair. One- for the reason I stated above, to give the producers fodder to release a new DVD of this awful clip-show, and Two- to try and fix a few continuity problems that existed within the series. This film does this by making the overall plot even MORE confused and convoluted (so now the first film is technically the third film, and the second film is technically the eighth film?), and by flat-out disrespecting characters and ideas from previous entries. (Including a moment where the main character from the fourth and fifth film is killed by a single line of dialog- our villain says: "Oh, I uh... killed him." and that's it. So disrespectful to the fans.)

The plot of the new footage is this- a man named Eric Weiss (unknown actor who we'll never hear from again) is captured by some rogue agent chick named Maclain (unknown actress who we'll never hear from again) who forces him to tell her the story of the puppets from the movies. That's it. It's stupid.

The kicker is that the new footage doesn't even try to LOOK good. It's some of the laziest, cheapest footage I've ever seen. It looks like it was filmed on an 80's VHS camcorder, the lighting is abysmal, there is no real set-decoration or design to speak of, and the acting is hilariously bad.

As a fan of the series, this film just felt like a cheap, cash-grabbing insult. This is a 1 out of 10, plain and simple. (Yet somehow isn't as bad as the pain-inducing "Puppet Master VS Demonic Toys." Saw that once about five years ago, and it still makes me angry.)

This is a 70 or 80 min clip show depending on what version you got. There are hardly any new material and just of a man remembering the old movies.

The result is a complete mess of clips without proper story line. The whole point of this movie must be to get some fast money from the fans of the series without making any effort.

There is just nothing here for anyone. I you have watched or planed to watch the other movies in the series. Skip this one. I you never seem a Puppet Master movie go see another one.

I would recommend Puppet master or Puppet Master 3 - Toulon's Revenge as a starting point for this series.

Remember when I said 6/7 may be the weakest entries to the franchise/series of the Puppet Master? I was talking about actual movies, that bring you something new. This is just a rehash of old highlights thrown in together. This could be a DVD/Blu Ray Extra, though bloated a bit, of best kills and all that. It has about 90 % of old clips narrated by someone who is being held at gun point because ... well that would be a spoiler.

Not that it does matter in the end of course. Because this is just a cash in. On the other hand, maybe this is sufficient and you don't need to watch all the previous entries to get you up to speed before the next three installments formed a trilogy that could've been shortened and was too long for it's own good and also kind of feels like a cash in? Then again, I'll be awaiting entry number 12 now, which is supposed to be really good fun

The problem with Legacy isn't the fact that it the majority of it shows all the past movies with a very small subplot. The problem is that it was horribly edited and with a better storyline could have meshed the current situation with Peter and the previous story lines so much better. I'm actually kind of a fan of the idea to playback all the memories but the wrong scenes were shown and it didn't flow. It's not a good movie at all, the eighty percent of old scenes were boring and the new twenty percent were highlighted with a couple of horrible acting and more questions than answers. The lady agent is just horrendous and her story is completely far-fetched and laughable. I'd stay away from the movie or else just fast forward through the past events and check out the terribly cheesy plot that comes in and trickles out every so often. Since this is chronologically the last movie in the series I'm looking forward to the possibility of a franchise rejuvenation in the near future.