The Dungeon/Puppet Master

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My last post was about a movie that I saw about five months ago. I figured that this one should be about a movie that I actually just watched. Since Charles Band was responsible for two great different film companies I thought maybe I should watch the first films from each. That is exactly what I did. I watched The Dungeonmaster and Puppet Master.

 First up, The Dungeonmaster was the first movie to be completed by Empire International, but was shelved for a few years and not released until 1985. The interesting thing about this film is that each of the different segments were written and directed by different people. It really is a horror/fantasy; more fantasy than horror, knockoff of Tron, Excalibur and 2001 combined. Now that makes sense since the original titles were Ragewar: The Challenges of Excalibrate and Digital Knights.

 The second choice was Puppet Master, which was the first film for Full Moon. Puppet Master was originally supposed to be released under Empire International. However, it didn't see the light of day until Full Moon was underway. There are a couple of interesting things to be said about Puppet Master. The first worth mentioning is that Full Moon was originally planning on pushing for a theatrical release of the movie. Now, if that would have happened it might have been very successful, but it is very unlikely that would have been the case. What is more likely to have happened the movie would have been released in theaters and been a huge flop, and being the company’s first movie that would have been devastating to Full Moon. The second little tidbit is that it spawned ten sequels, one of which was not produced by Full Moon, Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys, and is not considered a true part of the series.

When I decided to do a blog about Charles Band movies I didn't realize that it would be a topic that might be a bit challenging.  It turns out when you decide to cover low budget, straight to video movies from 30 years ago, some of them are a bit difficult to find streaming on-line. Hell, half of them aren't even on DVD. I guess I will be investing in some ancient technology and buying a VCR.