Product Details

• Actors: Greg Sestero, Brigitta Dau, Stephen Blackehart, Jack Donner, Guy Rolfe
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Full Moon Pictures / Sunset Home Visual Entertainment (SHE)
• DVD Release Date: March 14, 2000
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 1573471399
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #135,808 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Retro Puppet Master" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Joseph Tennent's Retro Puppet Master comes to DVD with a standard full-frame transfer. The English soundtrack is rendered in Dolby Digital Stereo. There are neither closed-captions nor subtitles on this release. The disc lacks any extra features, but considering the very inexpensive list price, this is not a surprise. Genre enthusiasts will certainly want to watch this disc. Others may want to give this title a chance, but remember that one gets what one pays for.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bad attempt at revitalizing the saga, December 23, 2003

By 

TrezKu13 (Norfolk, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Retro Puppet Master [VHS] (VHS Tape)

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?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars another full moon success, February 21, 2000

By 

"grazzmunkey" (ARIZONA BAY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Retro Puppet Master [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Years ago a small film company named full moon productions made there first horror film, revenge of the puppet master.Since then they have produced 7 of these awesome movies.These movies follow puppet master andre toulon and his magical puppets,blade,six shoote torch,pinhead,and jester through there fights with good and evil.This film starts with toulon telling his puppets the story of the original puppets,the retros.The movie turns out to be great,probably one of full moons best. I DEFINATELY RECCOMEND THIS MOVIE TO ALL HORROR FANS.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars JULIAN JAYNES WOULD HAVE LOVED IT, November 7, 2001

By 

Bill Parkyn (Lomita, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Retro Puppet Master [VHS] (VHS Tape)

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.