Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge

Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge or (Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge, When Good Puppets Go Bad) is a 1991 horror film written by Charles Band, C. Courtney Joyner and David Schmoeller, and directed by David DeCoteau. It is the third film in the Puppet Master franchise, a prequel to 1989's Puppet Master and 1991's Puppet Master II, and stars Guy Rolfe as a puppeteer whose ability to animate lifeless material attracts the attention of the Nazis, whose members are played by Richard Lynch, Ian Abercrombie and Walter Gotell.

Toulon's Revenge, as well as the second, fourth and fifth installments of the series, are only available in DVD format through a Full Moon Features box set that has since been discontinued. However, in 2007, Full Moon Features reacquired the rights to the first five films, and the boxset has since been reissued and is available directly from Full Moon, as well as through several online retailers.

The film is also available on DVD along with the first two films on a triple feature "Midnight Horror Collection" at a budget price.

Plot
In 1941, in World War II Berlin. A scientist, named Dr. Heiss, is forced by the Nazis, especially his Gestapo liaison, named Major Kraus, to create a drug capable of animating dead corpses to use as living shields on the battlefield, but cannot get it right: While the corpses do reanimate, they have a tendency towards mindless violence. In a small theater downtown, André Toulon has set up a politically satirical puppet show for children, starring a six-armed American Old West puppet, named Six-Shooter, who attacks an inanimate reconstruction puppet of Adolf Hitler. The show is, next to a crowd of children, also attended by a Nazi Agent, named Lt. Erich Stein, Kraus' driver. After the performance, Toulon and his wife Elsa feed the puppets with the formula which sustains their life force, but they are watched by Stein, who informs his superior the next morning. Hess, genuinely fascinated by the formula, wants Toulon to freely share the secret with him, but Kraus wants to take Toulon in for treason.

The next day, André gives Elsa a puppet crafted in her likeness as a gift, but soon afterwards Kraus, Hess and a squad of soldiers break into the atelier and take Toulon, Tunneler, and Pinhead. When Elsa attempts to prevent them from taking the formula as well, she is shot by one of the escort, and Toulon is dragged away from her. When Kraus prepares to leave, the wounded Elsa spits at him in defiance, and in retaliation, Kraus cold-bloodedly shoots her dead. However, while transporting Toulon off, the two soldiers guarding him are killed by Pinhead and Tunneler, enabling Toulon to escape.

After hiding for the remainder of the night, Toulon returns to his theater to find that the stage has been burnt by the Nazis. He finds Six Shooter and Jester and leaves with them, then discovers a partially destroyed hospital and decides to set up camp in it. Toulon wants revenge, so he, Pinhead and Jester break into the morgue to get his wife's life essence and inserts it into the woman puppet he made for her, and as she comes to life, he inserts several poisonous leeches he found in a jar into her. Later that night, Toulon carries out the first revenge attack on Stein while he fixes Kraus' car, along with Pinhead, Jester and Leech Woman, and on his flight from pursuers Toulon subsequently finds shelter in a bombed-out building.

Back in his lab, Dr. Hess is studying Toulon's formula, and desperate to meet and talk with him, he goes back to the old theater. Meanwhile, some friends from the puppet show, a boy named Peter Hertz and his father, find Andre and decide to live with him after Peter's mother was arrested on charges of espionage. The next day, Toulon sends Six Shooter to kill General Müller, the supervisor of the Nazi reanimation project, while Müller is visiting a brothel. While Six Shooter manages to kill the general, Müller shoots off one of the puppet's arms beforehand. Peter goes back to Toulon's old atelier to look for a replacement arm and is caught by Dr. Hess, who treats him kindly and gets him to take him to Toulon.

Dr. Hess finds and talks to Toulon, who tells him about the puppets' secret, and the two become friends. But Peter's father betrays Toulon by telling Major Kraus about his hideout in exchange for a pardon for his family. Kraus and his men storm the ruin, but the puppets fight back, enabling Toulon and Hess to escape. Kraus stops Peter and his father, demanding to know where Toulon is; Hertz fights against and is shot by Kraus. While searching the nearby houses, one of Kraus' men is shot by Six-Shooter; but when Hess approaches him, the soldier puts a knife into him before expiring. Hess dies from the injury, telling Toulon to keep fighting. Toulon returns once more to his old theater, where he falls asleep from exhaustion and is soon joined by the now orphaned Peter.

At night, Major Kraus returns to his office, only to fall prey to an ambush by Toulon and his puppets, now joined by Blade, infused with Hess' essence. Toulon takes terrible revenge on Kraus by hanging him from the ceiling by his limbs and neck by Pinhead, which are impaled by sharp hooks. After having a halberd from Kraus' office decorations planted into the floor, point up, Toulon sets the rope on fire; the rope snaps, and Kraus eventually falls fatally right onto the halberd. The film ends with Toulon, posing as Kraus, and Peter leaving the country for Geneva on the express train.

Puppets featured
Other Puppets:
 * Blade
 * Pinhead
 * Jester
 * Tunneler
 * Leech Woman
 * Six-Shooter
 * Djinn

Trivia

 * In contrast to Puppet Master 1 establishing that Toulon committed suicide in 1939, It's originally 1936.
 * This film is unique among all the sequels for it tells the backstory of not only Andre Toulon, but the puppets from all of his films as well.
 * This is the film that tells how Leech Woman is brought to life. Leech Woman is actually Elsa Toulon's life essence injected into the puppet.
 * Blade is also made in this film and we find out that he is Major Krauss's life essence injected into the puppet.
 * Pinhead was a normal sanitarian worker who stood up against the Nazi's and was shot to death. André Toulon was good friends with him and used his life essence to create Pinhead.
 * Jester was a street performer that too was killed by the Nazi's. His last wish was to get revenge on the Nazi's, so André Toulon used his life essence to bring Jester to life.
 * Tunneler was once a German Soldier that did not approve of Major Krauss's actions and decisions. Before his death his life essence was used for Tunneler.
 * This is Six Shooter's first appearance in the Puppet Master films. He has six arms with six little guns that fire real bullets. Unlike the other puppets, Six Shooter's origins are never really explained.
 * Actor Guy Rolfe makes his first appearance as André Toulon in this film and portrayed the character in the remaining films (until his death).
 * This film is unique among all the sequels in that it tells the back-story of not only André Toulon, but his puppets as well. Retro Puppet Master later followed a similar formula. Toulon and his puppets are also given a sympathetic take, rather than senseless killers.
 * This film, along with the first five chapters were only available on DVD through a Full Moon Features box set that is now out of print. The box also included the sixth and seventh chapters of the franchise and a bonus disc containing 45 movie trailers.
 * This box set has yet to be re-released and chapters two through five have yet to be released individually on DVD.

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