Puppet Master 4

Puppet Master 4 is an American horror film of the killer doll and demonic thriller subgenres. It is the fourth installment in the ongoing Puppet Master film series and was directed by Jeff Burr. It was produced by Charles Band and Full Moon Entertainment and was released direct-to-video on September 24th, 1993. The film stars Gordon Currie, Chandra West, Jason Adams, Teresa Hill, Fileton Perry, Stacie Randall, Jake McKinnon and Guy Rolfe as the puppet master, Andre Toulon. Unlike previous installments of the series, Puppet Master 4 incorporates even more supernatural elements, including a demon named Sutekh who seeks to gain control over the secret of animating objects. The puppets of Andre Toulon once again take on the role of protagonists as they work to safegurd a group of researchers from Sutekh's demonic minions.

Plot
In the underworld, the demon lord Sutekh sends forth a trio of diminutive servants called Totems, magically controlled by his netherworld minions, to kill those who possess the secret of animation, including the magic Andre Toulon used to give his puppets life. It transpires also that a team of researchers working on the development of artificial intelligence are close to discovering Toulon's secret. Sutekh sends one of the Totems as a package to two of the researchers involved, Dr. Piper and Dr. Baker of the Phoenix Division, who are taken by surprise, killed and stripped of their souls by the foul creature.

One of the researchers, a talented young man named Rick Myers, is working as a caretaker at the Bodega Bay Inn and has also been using it for a place to conduct his experiments on the A.I. project. The same night Drs. Piper and Baker are murdered, Rick's friends Suzie, Lauren, and Cameron come to visit him. At dinner, Lauren, who is a psychic, finds Blade (who had been discovered earlier by Rick inside the house and is still animate) and then Toulon's old trunk, with the puppets, Toulons diary and some phials with the life-giving formula inside. Out of curiosity, Rick and his friends use the fluid on the puppets, and one by one they awaken; next to Blade, they find Pinhead, Six Shooter, Tunneler and Jester. (Torch, who joins the puppet cast in the sequel, makes no appearance here.)

Fascinated by the puppets' spontaneous reactions, and believing that the formula is the answer to the running AI projects, Rick wants to see how smart they are by playing a laser tag game with Pinhead and Tunneler. Cameron, who is competing with Rick for success, tries to use the formula's secret for his personal gain, and he and Lauren decide to use a strange gameboard found in the trunk to try and contact Toulon for its exact composition (the recipe of which was not recorded in the diary). But the glowing pyramid icon which goes with the board is a conduit between the mortal world and the underworld; Sutekh uses the link to send two of his Totems to attack. Cameron and Lauren attempt to flee by car, but Cameron is ambushed by one of the Totems inside his car and killed, while Lauren manages to get back into the hotel. When Rick looks after Cameron, the Totem attacks him as well, but he manages to escape.

But inside the inn, the third Totem, sent in earlier by package, is also on the prowl. The puppets, intend on protecting Rick, search the hotel and soon manage to kill one of the Totems in the kitchen and, through its supervision link, its controller in the underworld. Then Toulon's spirit, who has been appearing around the hotel all night, tells the puppets to animate the Decapitron. Under Rick and Suzie's astonished eyes, the puppets move up to Rick's room, retrieve a box which contains yet another puppet with a soft plastic head, and revive it with the formula and a lightning strike. The two remaining Totems attack to disrupt the process, but one is electrocuted when Six Shooter uses a wire as a lariat to divert some of the lightning's power into the Totem. Decapitron briefly awakens, and his head morphs into the likeness of Toulon, who explains to Rick the origin and the secret of the life-giving formula. The phial, however, turns out to be missing; immediately suspecting Cameron, Rick goes back to search his body, where he does find the phial.

Meanwhile, the last Totem corners the panicked Lauren and prepares to drain her life away when Suzie interferes and douses it with acid. Toulon speaks through Lauren, urging Rick to animate Decapitron to destroy the Totem, and Rick uses his computer to divert power from his generator into Decapitron, bringing him to life. As the Totem attacks, Decapitron exchanges his plastic head for an electron-bolt launching system and destroys the creature. Afterwards, Toulon speaks to Rick yet again, surrendering custody of his puppets and the formula to him and promising his help in times of need.

Fun Facts

 * The tagline for this film is "When bad puppets turn good." This is featured on the VHS home video box cover release of the film.


 * First appearance of the puppet known as Decapitron. The idea behind Decapitron was developed by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo and was intended for an unrealized feature film called Decapitraton. However, Charles Band's company, Empire Pictures, went out of business and the project was never put into production.


 * Director Jeff Burr has worked on numerous films in the horror genre. He has directed such movies as The Offspring, Stepfather II, Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, Night of the Scarecrow, The Werewolf Reborn!, Phantom Town and The Devil's Den.


 * Composer Richard Band is the younger brother of producer Charles Band.


 * Actor Gordon Currie has appeared in numerous horror films and TV programs. His horror debut was made in 1989 when he played Miles Wolfe in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. He also appeared in The Terror Within II in 1991, The Fear: Resurrection in 1999 as well as episodes of Forever Knight and Poltergeist: The Legacy. Gordon reprises the role of Rick Myers for the sequel to this film, Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter.


 * Actress Chandra West also played a character named Beth in Tobe Hooper's Night Terrors. She played Anna Rivers in the 2005 film White Noise. She also played a vampire character named Grace Dugan in the "Live Hard, Die Young, and Leave a Good Looking Corpse" episode of Kindred: The Embraced and had a recurring role playing a witch named Devon Buckley in the short-lived ABC television series The Gates. Chandra reprises the role of Suzie for the sequel to this film, Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter.