Full Moon Pictures, 1999

starring: Greg Sestero, Brigitta Dau, and Jack Donner

directed by: David DeCoteau

the plot: Directly following the events of “Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge,” an aged Andre Toulon (Guy Rolfe, in his final “Puppet Master” appearance before his death), the titular Puppet Master, is hiding in an abandoned building with his living dolls during WWII. His puppets discover the cracked head of an old marionette, so Toulon decides to tell them about the first generation of puppets he brought to life. Cue a flashback to Egypt, where an ancient sorcerer named Azfel (Donner) has stolen the secret to life from the evil god Sutekh. Pursued by three mummies dressed in sharp suits, he flees to France; the mummies cleverly have him jumped by two street thugs, for whom the incredibly powerful wizard is inexplicably no match. But Azfel is rescued from certain death by the beautiful Ilsa (Dau) and takes shelter in a puppet theater. He tutors the head puppeteer, the young and handsome Toulon (Sestero), in the magic art of animating puppets. Soon, all of Toulon’s friends are slaughtered by the mummies, so he sticks their souls in the puppets he uses for his show and sets out for revenge. Along the way, Ilsa is kidnapped, and he determines to rescue her, too.

why it’s good: The dialogue is a trainwreck. The “acting” scarcely deserves to be called such. The effects are an affront to film students paying for their productions out of pocket. The puppets, apart from the pretty cool Dr. Death, are sad and shoddy. Every character who dies onscreen is killed by added-in-post-production waves of evil magic. Not a single interaction onscreen makes a lick of sense. Yes, this movie really has it all. In other words, this one is for those of you out there with high pain tolerance and the ability to watch something with almost no redeeming value save for accidental hilarity. If that sounds like you, break out your robot sidekicks and get ready for fun. But be warned: you will need every ounce of your riffing skills to make it out alive.

why you should own it: For the right person, owning this film is almost a badge of honor, to show off to other bad horror junkies and amateur MST3K-style movie hecklers. With the right amount of poking around, it can be found on DVD fairly cheaply, although, let’s be honest, you’re probably going to feel a little ripped off no matter what you pay. Still, it’s a Full Moon production, so you should already know what you’re getting into. Plus, Full Moon always has previews for other amazingly bad films.