Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge Review

Review of Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991) by screenqueeen: 👍 3.5/5

HE HAS RISEN: CARPEASTER 1.0 DAY 12 OF 13

In the long and tangled web of PUPPET MASTER features the consensus is generally that the first few are the best and having seen the first 3 now I can see where people are coming from. I was one of those people who rushed to watch RETRO PUPPET MASTER after reading Greg Sestero's Disaster Artist despite not having seen any of the other installments.

The way Toulon's story is told as the installments jump back and forth across time is probably the most intriguing thing about the plot on paper but relatively simple elements get further complicated and become less clear. I'm not too big a fan of having to build a mythos behind another mythos just to explain how in the world a puppeteer can create a serum that gives his puppets life, let alone giving that back-backstory its own movies too.

For all its complications I feel that this particular installment hits the perfect balance of backstory nuance (is that a word I can use with the PUPPET MASTER series, "nuance?") with motivations driven by the actual, titular puppet master that serve to fascinate especially after the events of the second feature that casts Toulon as a resurrected evil. The sympathy for Toulon in this is so much on the other side that I'm wondering if it would have been a better idea to tell this story sequentially after all.

In any case, this has the best of both worlds for a positive & sympathetic depiction of Toulon fighting against and fleeing an oppressive regime and his puppets brutally murdering everyone getting in his way. Plus we get to see the sad beginning of Leech Woman and Six Shooter is introduced to us for the first time, as well as the in-universe inspiration for Blade (and why he's considered so dangerous -- he's modeled after Richard Lynch!).

Despite this series being unnecessarily convoluted it's still an enjoyable experience and I will always point to these first 3 films as my favorites of the series.