Fright film fans need no introduction to Full Moon Features or the Puppet Master series. Cinestate’s Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich sees the classic horror series re-imagined by new filmmakers and the result is unlike any of the previous Full Moon released entries. We caught up with horror icon and head honcho at Full Moon Features, Charles Band, to hear what he has to say about the new film and to see what’s going on in the world of Full Moon.
Horror Geek Life: From VHS to DVD to Digital Streaming and beyond, Full Moon has remained an ever-present force in horror and cult cinema. What’s your secret to having endured the ages?
Charles Band: (laughs) Aside from the painting in the attic, you know, the medium changes, but at the end of the day you have to love what you do and I love making these movies. Even though I’ve made hundreds. I love the genre. When I started, it was all 35mm and being the B-side of a double bill and you made your money based on ticket sales and it morphed into all the things you just enumerated and beyond. I don’t know where we’ll be in 10-20 years, but we’ll keep making movies.
At the end of the day, it’s still about entertaining people who want to escape for a while and be part of some crazy adventure. I’ve made more horror films than anything else, but I’ve made some sci-fi and tween movies, like the Moonbeam films. I enjoy the genre and even though the mediums have changed, the delivery systems have changed, it’s still just telling a good story and having some fun with it. I think people recognize that.
HGL: Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich is a complete re-launch of your iconic series. What’s it like seeing Puppet Master through a different pair of eyes?
CB: I think it’s great! It was one of those unique deals where, in the past I’ve been approached, one case by a major studio and another case a mini-major, they wanted to essentially come in, remake the feature, and take me out of the Puppet Master business because that’s how those deals work. They put up a bunch of money and make a big mainstream, theatrically released version of a movie you’ve made, they don’t want you continuing to make movies in that franchise and confuse the marketplace. So, the deals always come attached with, “here’s a bunch of money, we’re gonna make a big ass Puppet Master film and, yes, you can keep distributing your old movies, but you can’t make any more new ones because we own the franchise.” I turned those deals down because this is our most well-known franchise, over 28 years, and a lot of heart and soul and crazy ideas have gone into it.
When Dallas Sonnier, who owns Cinestate, came to me and talked about his approach, as dark and as weird as it was, he said, “look, we’re going to make such a different sort of Puppet Master story than what yours have been. Why don’t you continue making yours and we’ll just make our twisted and dark Puppet Master series? So, the two can live side-by-side on two separate tracks.” That was very appealing because the take on the original Puppet Master and all the 11 features over the last 28 years is a different spin than what they’re doing.
They’re making a true exploitation movie, some people will hate it and some people will love it. There will be controversy, and that hopefully lifts it out of the morass of other competing movies. I like the fact that it’s definitely going to create some craziness and I’m really happy with the fact that we will continue making our own Puppet Master films. Behind all that, the theory is that people will watch this movie and, whether they like it or not, they’ll be reminded, if they’re any older than 18, that they used to go to their local video store, they used to rent a bunch of Full Moon movies, and they enjoyed those movies. The video store is gone, but they can go find our channel on Amazon. Our channel, which is two years old, has got all the Full Moon movies, all the new ones we’re making. It’s kind of the new digital video store. And it’s a bargain. For $6.99, they get to subscribe for a month and they can binge out and watch all 11 Puppet Masters over a long weekend. I think this Puppet Master film, which will have some theatrical release of more of a higher profile, will also open the door to people rediscovering all the other hundreds of Full Moon films.
HGL: I have to ask. Puppet Master, Demonic Toys, Gingerdead Man, Hideous. So many Full Moon movies deal with pint-sized monsters. What can you tell us about Full Moon’s fascination with miniature maniacs?
CB: (laughs) That’s a good one, I’m gonna write that down. Miniature maniacs, I haven’t heard that one yet. Well, I enjoyed those movies as a kid. Any movie with a small inanimate object that came to life, to me, was very entertaining. I’m a huge stop motion animation fan, for instance all the Ray Harryhausen films. I don’t know how it all began, it wasn’t a plot or a plan, but I made a few movies in the early days of my career that had stop motion and had diminutive creatures. Then in the ’80s, when things were going really well and we had bigger budgets, I thought, “I gotta make the ultimate dolls movie” and I made a movie called Dolls where we had literally hundreds of dolls and a lot of amazing stop motion animation by David Allen. Then when that decade was nearing its end and I started Full Moon, I wanted the first Full Moon film to be in that sub-genre and I invented the idea of Puppet Master. That was very successful.
Ever since, it just seems that we keep stumbling on different cool ways to have demonic toys come to life and more puppets, and as you said, The Gingerdead Man and The Gingerweed Man and endless characters that are, you know, kinda small. I’m actually amazed, I shouldn’t even say this because it’s going to be read by others, but I’m amazed that other companies, over all the years I’ve been making these movies, haven’t come in to try to steal our territory. On occasion there have been movies that have been somewhat similar, but I feel lucky that it’s been kind of an open playing field. We’re sort of the company that’s been making puppet and doll movies.
HGL: So, how did Littlest Reich come to be? Did you ever imagine that this type of film would be made, this approach to the series?
CB: Nope. I’d never imagined it, but again, when Dallas approached me and was willing to make their own bizzarro, very dark, Puppet Master film with a certain sense of humor throughout the whole thing like a crazy silly camp movie, the fact that he was willing to go and create this alternative universe and let me continue to make our Puppet Master movies. That offer alone was really cool. I thought, I hope it turns out great and draws a lot of attention. I think there’s a lot of magic in the franchise, but we’ll keep making our own Puppet Master films.
So, I read the script, I understood where the controversy was gonna be. This was really emblematic of what exploitation movies were, going back to the ’30s and the ’40s. You needed a gimmick, if you were William Castle, you invented all sorts of stuff, back when it was only a theatrical release business. You needed something different and even controversial, and that’s what all exploitation movies that were successful had at their core. This new Puppet Master, very different from the ones we made, and, yes, it borrows some of the Puppet Master history, but even the puppets look different. So, I didn’t quite imagine it to be exactly this way, but now that it’s done and finished, I think that if you go in with the right attitude, you’ll have fun. Or you may say it was terrible. I’ve talked to a few people and I’ve said, “You know, they took it literally, these are Nazi puppets. And let me remind you, Nazis are bad (laughs). Nazis aren’t good!” It’s kind of fun seeing something so weird and different, but the two will co-exist.
HGL: You mentioned David Allen earlier and the news of The Primevals finally being released is extremely exciting. After all these years, what made that release possible?
CB: Now, that’s a two hour story. It was a combination of trying to find a clever way to finish the movie that would be respectful to David Allen’s vision, and we’ve been lucky to have some fans who’ve contributed some money to our Indiegogo campaigns recently. So, we’re gonna start one in about a month and we hope a lot of the fans of Dave Allen and Puppet Master will contribute a few bucks. You know, it sat for 20-odd years and it’s crazy how things happen, but it was also time. It was time to not fuss over trying to find a way to finish it with the exact blueprint Dave wanted because stop motion animation is almost a lost art.
Dave was unique in being able to pull off some incredible shots. Soon everyone will see the promo reel, which is like a mind-blower. This movie is every bit as good and large-scale and fantastic as any of the Ray Harryhausen films. And I say that loving those movies and thinking that some day, maybe we can do something in that realm. This film has really got it. There’s been nothing like it for decades, that’s for sure. So, it’s a combination of things and timing and just saying, “We gotta get this thing done. This cannot just sit in the vault anymore.”
HGL: What else can fans of Full Moon look forward to coming up? Is there anything you can tell us about?
CB: There’s so much. We also did a deal with Cinestate for another reboot of Castle Freak. I know they like to go dark and Castle Freak, I think, is one of my darkest films, so I don’t know where they’re going to go. So, that’s exciting because they’ll do something sort of different in their own track. This is the year of preparing a 10-picture slate, which we’re going to shoot next year. It’s going to be very involved with social media, in that I’m kind of inventing ways, again in the spirit of exploitation, to make it more interactive. To get people involved with the whole process. So, it’s a 10-picture slate called Deadly 10. We have the website already, there’s nothing there yet because we have to put an elaborate program together, but people can be involved with the production, they can visit the set virtually, it’s going to be something fun that is more than just us making movies.
The movies are going to be a great array of sequels to franchises people love, even a new Subspecies film we’re trying to fit in to this, but also some new projects that are gonna be really cool. It’s a big project, it’s a big deal, there’s going to be a very high-end documentary made sort of concurrent with our producing these films. So, there’s big plans for next year. We’re putting that together right now. And, of course, Primevals (laughs), which should be done by next summer.
Check out the review for Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich here!
The puppet master movies scared the shit out of me when I was a child. I haven’t gotten around to watching them all yet. I should remedy that and write about the journey.