Charles Band's Filmography (2020): Masters of Terror

By Steve Hutchison

This book contains the synopses and reviews of the darkest films in Charles Band's filmography. The movies are ranked.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Hutchison
• Release date: Mar 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778871641

Steve Hutchison

Artist, developer and entrepreneur in film, video games and communications Steve Hutchison co-founded Shade.ca Art and Code in 1999, then Terror.ca and its French equivalent Terreur.ca in 2000. With his background as an artist and integrator, Steve worked on such games as Capcom's Street Fighter, PopCap's Bejeweled, Tetris, Bandai/Namco's Pac-Man and Mattel's Skip-Bo & Phase 10 as a localization manager, 2-D artist and usability expert. Having acquired skills in gamification, he invented a unique horror movie review system that is filterable, searchable and sortable by moods, genres, subgenres and antagonists. Horror movie fans love it, and so do horror authors and filmmakers, as it is a great source of inspiration. In March 2013, Steve launched Tales of Terror, with the same goals in mind but with a much finer technology and a complex engine, something that wasn’t possible initially. He has since published countless horror-themed books.

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Tales of Terror’s

Masters of Terror 2020

Charles Band’s Filmography

INTRODUCTION

This book contains the synopses and reviews of the darkest films in Charles Band’s filmography. The listings are ranked from best to worst.

#1

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich

2018

Puppets gathered for auction at a convention are magically animated and kill everyone.

Stars

7/8

STORY

5/8

CREATIVITY

8/8

ACTING

7/8

QUALITY

7/8

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich is very loyal and respectful of the Puppet Master franchise but does things better and differently. It reinvents itself in every way possible while upholding most of the mythos. Something needed to be done because this series was going nowhere interesting. This new addition doesn’t conflict with previous films and feels like both a sequel and a remake.

Continuity is maximized and there are no plot holes, except perhaps Andre Toulon’s arc, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. The whole Nazi versus Jewish element is kind of heavy, but it’s been hindering these movies since the beginning and it must exist. The Littlest Reich has, by far, the best puppetry we’ve seen. The actors are excellent, no matter how significant their part is.

This mostly takes place in a hotel. It is where it all started, after all, and Puppet Master purists will appreciate it. The best thing about this movie is that the puppets are evil, so expect a slasher and a significant body count. There are boobs and there is sex, in case you wondered. The creators left nothing to chance. In fact, this may very well be the best Puppet Master movie to date.

#2

Puppet Master II

1991

A collection of possessed puppets collect human tissue for their master to help create a formula that brings back the dead.

Stars

5/8

STORY

6/8

CREATIVITY

7/8

ACTING

5/8

QUALITY

5/8

This sequel isn’t as artsy and is a bit more accessible than the original Puppet Master. It is still a visionary supernatural horror b-movie, and still takes place in that majestic Victorian hotel, but it goes out of its way and its limited location to push the gimmick a little further. It picks up where we left off and almost remakes itself.

The characters are deeper, more plausible and not all so overwhelmingly eccentric. It’s a good sequel but it’s definitely more of the same done a little better and with more background story. It’s great to see those memorable puppets come back to life, once more, and be given more screen time. They are the center of this, after all. Cool hybrids