On this episode we talk to Breaking Mayberry co-host Dan Ludwig about the Puppet Master series and other beloved li’l killers from Chucky to the dolls of Tales from the Hood.

Listen to “The White Meat Podcast” on Spreaker.

Here’s the transcript:

David Dylan Thomas: Hey everybody. Welcome to the White Meat Podcast. I’m your host, David Dylan Thomas writer and director of White Meat. This is a movie with the following premise underneath Washington Square Park are buried the bodies of hundreds of enslaved people. What if one night they all come back from the dead as zombies but they only eat white people?

So you can learn more at whitemeatmovie.com. And we have so many things to talk about today. So we are in the process of creating a short called White Meat: Appetizer, which will hopefully help launch the feature. And this past week really just a couple days ago, we watched the next to last cut before we hand it over to sound and coloring.

And it looks great. People are really psyched about it. I cannot wait for you to see it. Also this week as of Tuesday, August 5th we have submitted a panel to South by Southwest conference called Black FXellence, Unsung Women of Color in FX. And it’s gonna be I’ll be hosting and it’s gonna be led by, Fre Howard, our special effects artist and makeup artist for White Meat: Appetizer. And it’s just gonna be some women of color in FX talking about how great their work is about sort of the way that they are mistreated in the industry and sort of like the missed potential there and the unfairness of that, but also the potential if Hollywood would pay attention and and sort of create more opportunities.

So anyway, I think it’s gonna be a great panel. Please vote for it. ’cause the way South by Southwest decides what to put on part of that about a third of that is people just like you going in and voting. So if you go to the South by Southwest S-X-S-W panel picker.

And then search for Black FXellence. That’s like the letters FX and then E-L-L-E-N-C-E, Black FXellence the unsung women of color in FX. Again, the letter F, the letter X. And then vote and leave a comment. That improves our chances and then tell more people. That improves our chances even more.

So please check that out. So today I figured we’d take a break from the behind the scenes stuff and just do something really fun. I talked to my friend Daniel from the Breaking Mayberry podcast, which I’ve been on a couple of times, once to talk about I Saw the TV Glow and another time to talk about the Hollywood arc of a the show The Andy Griffith Show which is what that podcast is about. So anyway, Daniel and I got to talking and he knows I’m a horror fan. He’s also a horror fan, and when he found out that I hadn’t seen the Puppet Master movies yet, he’s like, we need to talk about this. And he was right. I watched the first three, and we have a fantastic conversation about killer puppets in movies, whether it’s Puppet Master, or Tales from the Hood or Child’s Play, we try to get into all the little, li’l killers in these movies and it’s a lot of fun. So here we are talking to Daniel Ludwig from Breaking Mayberry.

[musical interlude]

David Dylan Thomas: So welcome everybody to the White Meat Podcast. I’m your host, David Dylan Thomas, and today I have a very special guest from the podcasting world. Daniel Ludwig. Tell the good people at home what it is you get up to.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. So I I host Breaking Mayberry podcast with my good friend Marty Schneider. We are a comedy variety podcast where we talk about old television, primarily the Andy Griffith Show, although we’ve branched off into a lot of stuff and primarily how it drove older generations absolutely insane.

About how the crazy, how black and white TV taught your grandparents a lot of stuff about cops and homeless people that may have, have had some long term effects on the way things are, but also we like to, we just kind of clown on old TV because they were all drunk and doing really dumb stuff on camera.

David Dylan Thomas: So wait, the actors were drunk?

Daniel Ludwig: Everybody was drunk. Mostly, mostly the writers are this, they’re drunkenness. Most Andy Griffith scripts are written on the back of a cocktail napkin and thrown at someone’s head.

David Dylan Thomas: So, so I, I like this. I like the idea we should write a book that sort of like tracks pop culture through the drugs of the people who were creating it.

Right. So you get to the eighties and we see how cocaine influenced the entertainment industry and how you get these absolutely bonkers plots. Not unlike some of the ones we’re gonna talk about today. So what, what are we gonna talk about today, Daniel?

Daniel Ludwig: We are talking about one of my, one of my favorite horror franchises.

It is, is very near and dear to my heart. I find it endlessly fascinating. It is the direct to video series Puppet Master. A incredible film series that has, I think, never really seen a movie theater about murderous little toys that do a bunch of really weird shit in an extremely convoluted mythology over the course of like 15 movies.

And have, it might be one of the coolest franchise turns ever where they go from being like really interesting horror movie monsters to basically Terminator 2. They do a Terminator 2 that I find so fucking interesting.

David Dylan Thomas: I was gonna say, so let’s, let’s, let’s begin. So let’s begin that journey.

So I have, I have myself born witness to the first three of, you know, an MCU’s worth of films. And let’s begin at the beginning. ’cause So first off, it’s interesting, I was pretty sure most of them were straight to DVD. I didn’t realize the first, I assumed the first one at least made it to theaters.

’cause you’re, you’re watching it and you’re like, this is goofy to be sure, but it actually feels like a real movie. This feels like it could have been one of those billions of, of, of late eighties horror films that had like a week run in theaters and then became a cult classic. So let’s talk about what is the, what is the premise of the first one?

Daniel Ludwig: So the first one is premise of the first one is so insane that it’s hard to summarize. The premise of the first one is a group of psychics go to a abandoned resort on like coastal Maine where they try to solve a mystery of one of their dead colleagues and in the process are slowly picked off by the puppets, which are stringless animated puppets that were created by Andre Toulon who was a occult puppeteer that escaped Nazi Germany.

David Dylan Thomas: Let’s, let’s pause there for a moment and repeat the phrase, a cult puppeteer who escaped Nazi Germany, which by the way is the, the prologue of the film just goes right there. Like this isn’t this isn’t a mystery you uncover as the movie goes along, it’s like, wait, is that a swastika? It’s like, no.

The movie opens with two Nazis trying to assassinate this dude, while the puppets basically try to either thwart them or run around the same hotel. And it’s like, this is unlike the, this is not the beginning of Halloween. This is unlike

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. The, I would not say the first one is good, but it makes so many absolutely insane like, like wild decisions that I, it like it is, it is so interesting to watch because yeah, they’re like, let’s introduce you to the puppet master. We’re gonna explain basically the premise of how this monster works in the first 30 say, oh, always shot himself in the head. Yeah. Okay.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. And I should warn our, our viewers, we’re gonna get, I mean, that was literally the first five minutes, but we are gonna get fairly spoilery on, on all of this stuff.

So I encourage you if you really wanna be surprised and you will be but you just go ahead and watch as many of these puppet movies as you wish and ditto we’re gonna be talking a little bit about Tales from the Hood as well. And those of you who are familiar with both will know exactly why.

But but yeah, like this opening is actually kind of a bravura sequence, right? ’cause you get this cross-cut between the two Nazis, who as far as you know, are just two guys in suits at this resort and the you, the crawl or whatever at the beginning, it’s like, this is like 1941 or whatever. It’s like the, the, the late forties, early fifties, whatever.

And by the way, I didn’t realize it was Maine. I thought it was like Northern California.

Daniel Ludwig: I’m, it’s probably Northern California. I just got real Maine vibes from what’s going on. I was like, this is some Steven King shit.

David Dylan Thomas: It could be. Right? This is exactly, this is just a beach beach resort. So you crosscut between these two Nazis who are like walking ominously in, and then you just get this puppet view, like puppet cam, which is kind of like the, the camera in like Evil Dead or Raising Arizona, but just really low to the ground.

It’s like some very Sonnenfeld shit, and it’s just gliding around. But with this little pitter-patter, which is like the cutest fucking thing, and like the most anti horror thing you can have, you know, like, like you’re watching a movie and they do the sound effect. Like if you have the close captions on, it’ll say squelch or chittering.

Like those are horror movie words. Pitter patter is not a horror movie or it’s, but it’s like smoothly gliding along the floor of this hotel.

Daniel Ludwig: If you didn’t know what like the context is when you saw that scene, be like, well that’s a chihuahua. We’re seeing a chihuahua’s point of view.

David Dylan Thomas: And there’s a, there’s a larger theme here, which we’ll, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll get into, which is like, how do you make really small things scary?

How do you make this little puppet who you could just kick really scary? And one of the things you do is you come down to its level. You have the camera go from its point of view, and all of a sudden it’s a least more like oh, it could be a rat or a snake or something else that’s small I’m scared of.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah, I think it’s, you go to alien rules. Where, you know, it’s, it’s in the vents. It’s hiding in nooks and crannies, like basically. Yeah. And multiple times the puppets will end up in a one v one confrontation with literally any human. And they get knocked out. They get jacked up. So they’re basically employing like guerilla warfare tactics at all time.

Like using like complex team coordination. Like one of them will distract you while the other one like stabs you in the Achilles tendon.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes.

Daniel Ludwig: And it’s kind of, the thing I like about it is like, it’s sort of the most realistic pain in the ass monster because like, you know. Michael Myers kind of relies on sort of this suspension of disbelief. He can magically disappear and appear even though he’s a normal guy. And these are just like, no. If you actually had to fight the puppet master puppets, it would be a fucking nightmare because they’d be like under the bed, in the vents behind your cabinet. If you go to get one, another one is gonna jump up and like, like throw a leech at the back of your head.

David Dylan Thomas: Okay, we’ll get to the leeches, but first, I love how in this, and this is not just puppet master, but it’s especially puppet master, like even the slightest scratch to like your, your, your thigh. Not your thigh. Your, your calve or your foot. Oh, I gotta fall down. Oh. Like it takes nothing to get you on the ground in a puppet master movie.

Daniel Ludwig: If if you, if you protect your Achilles tendon at all.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. If you like wear shin guards, if you just like wear thick socks, you are gonna survive a puppet master movie

Daniel Ludwig: That is, that is 90% of their moves is just a little fucker comes up behind you and just slashes the back of your foot.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s, let’s talk about these puppets, right?

So, you know, overview, A a as you know, as you do, you have a guy, a puppet cult guy who made a bunch of puppets that are basically protecting him and or protecting their master throughout these movies, and then inevitably turn on their master. Which is another trope in these movies.

But, but let’s talk, let’s get into the puppets themselves because I feel like these become the star, not unlike Jason or the, or the shark in Jaws, like they become the thing we care about in these, in these movies. And they really are creative. Like they are like, I have not, like they, and by creative I mean just bonkers.

Like the first one you see, or one of the first ones you see in the sort of modern day is this, it looks like human hands and probably is. Like tiny little head and big bulky body with like massive hands, like three times the size of its head. And you’re like, what the hell is this?

Daniel Ludwig: Yes. He, yeah. So they, they use him basically to frequently like show the head and then from behind something hu big ass human hands appear and he’s kind of like the heavy of the puppets mostly his move is just again, ankles grab you by the ankles. Make you fall down so another puppet can do some shit.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. But he, we’ll just straight up beat down.

Like he will just punch you. He’s got the fists. He’s the, he’s the LeBron of the, of the gang.

Daniel Ludwig: He will, he will whack you with a lead pipe.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes. Yes. And then we’ve got the the one with like who looks kind of like a he’s got like a, a, a fedora and a trench coat and he’s got like, got a skull face and knives come out of his eyes, which I’ve noticed he’s never really used the eye knives to hurt anyone.

It’s just scary as fuck.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. He, his primary weapon is he has a knife for one hand and a hook for the other one. And the knife eyes are just really to show when he’s not happy.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes, exactly.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. He’s like, he’s, I’m so upset right now that my eyes are knives now. That’s how pissed off I am.

David Dylan Thomas: That really is actually just a cartoon trope, right? It’s just sort of like literally staring daggers. There is a Shakespearean root to the Puppet Master movies. So he’s going, he’s sort of like, I don’t know, like the, the, I get the feeling from at least these movies. He’s kinda like the favorite, almost the leader kind of character that we, we, and he’s, I think, like the first puppet we really see, he’s the one who’s doing the little pitter-patter through the hotel in the beginning.

Daniel Ludwig: He’s sort of the most mainstream threat of them. Just little guy with knife, and I feel he’s sort of the face. He’s the one that, that a couple of years ago got his own spinoff movie.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, of course. Of course.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. He’s the one on all the cover art.

David Dylan Thomas: What’s his name?

Daniel Ludwig: I think it’s just Blade.

David Dylan Thomas: That’s right. Yeah.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. I’m gonna pull up, well gimme one sec to pull up the Puppet Master Wiki, because they have a list of like 80 puppets that appear throughout, throughout this thing.

David Dylan Thomas: I don’t know why I am, I’m not, and I’m surprised and not surprised there’s a Puppet Master Wiki, like.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. Oh. They have an a very in depth basically Excel sheet tracking the wi the, I’m gonna just do a quick count. I’m gonna say like 30 puppets that appear throughout this series. And the individual movies they do and do not appear in.

David Dylan Thomas: Well see, this is oh, go ahead.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. Our, our our opening for our our opening five, are Blade.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Daniel Ludwig: The one we were just discussing. Pinhead? The one with hands.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Daniel Ludwig: Jester. Who is fucking useless. Tunneler. And Leech Woman.

David Dylan Thomas: Okay, we all right. It’s time. We have to talk about Leech Woman. So Leech Woman appears in, so like most eighties horror movies people who are fucking get killed.

And so there’s a scene where these two are going at it. And then one of them leaves the room and then the other one is sort of faced with this like, feminine puppet. And you’re like, oh, let’s, let’s see. What’s, what’s she gonna do? Is she gonna like bite him? ’cause he’s like tied to the bed at this point.

’cause friends, if you’re ever in a horror movie, do not let yourself get tied to anything. I know it’s kinky.  I know it’s fun, but just make sure you’re not in a horror movie first. And you’re like, oh, what’s she gonna do? Is she gonna bite him? Is she gonna stab him? And then she does…and I gotta give him credit for one thing you would never guess she’s gonna do, which is she starts throwing up leeches on him.

Daniel Ludwig: And it’s not fast.

David Dylan Thomas: No. Oh no. This is like very slowly something. It’s like if you’ve ever seen The Hidden, it’s like that when that thing comes out of the guy’s mouth very slowly, it’s way too big for his mouth. She, this is, she is a TARDIS. There is not room for [indecipherable] tiny little body, so she is clearly channeling them from another dimension, but they still gotta fit through her mouth very slowly and then plop onto him.

And again, he’s tied up. He can’t get away. He just has to watch this happen. And it is the, I meant, I meant before we did this podcast to look up how many leches it would actually take to kill a human. But I’m gonna guarantee you it’s more than the leches she’s able to throw up in like the 20 minutes before his girlfriend comes back.

Daniel Ludwig: It, it would take her like 17 hours to kill a man with normal leeches. Like, and she, it, it’s five minutes per leach. They must be like super leeches that just rip through blood.

David Dylan Thomas: And what I love. ’cause by the, by the time his girlfriend discovers him he’s like five, six leches on him. And I’m like, okay.

That was actually like a medical treatment at one point. Like that’s not even necessarily a bad thing. Like they could be curing, they could be curing his Hep A right now. Like, I don’t know. But, but but, but yeah. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll say super. Super demon leches that are like, you know.

But what I love about this, you know, and again, I’m only three movies in, but what I love about this is in the third movie we actually get an origin story for the leches, right? Like it is, it is, it is that the fact that they bothered like, ’cause it didn’t, like it’s a puppet that’s throwing up leeches what origin story could possibly.

So yeah, like he’s making a puppet, I think of his dead wife, and then he’s like looking and see some leeches and is like, I have an idea. Is that it?

Daniel Ludwig: Yes. Basically like, he’s like, what is the perfect way to honor my dead wife with a puppet?

I know leeches.

David Dylan Thomas: Like if it were me, well, if it were me, I probably would never even bother explaining the leeches, but I probably wouldn’t be clever enough to clever bonkers enough to come up with the leeches. But it would’ve been more like, you know, like I would’ve had a scene or two with his wife where they just talk about how much she loves leeches and how to explain the, because there are like jars, like, you know, some people jar like preserves.

There are jars of leeches just in this, I don’t know if it’s his house or where he is hiding out. And so it’s like, that’s the thing that needs a backstory.

Daniel Ludwig: Yes. Normally you would just have a scene where Andre Toulon is like, sometimes I think you love those leeches more than you love me. And then she’s like, oh, I just think they’re fascinating creatures. If I ever die, I wanna be buried with leeches.

David Dylan Thomas: So, so, so that’s Leech Woman. And then of course we have what’s the one with the, the spinny top head that is Driller or something? What, what were you saying?

Daniel Ludwig: Tunneler?

David Dylan Thomas: Tunneler. Tunneler. Yes. Who, who, like first time you see him, he’s got a big old like drill for a head and you’re like, okay, I know what he’s gonna do.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. Arguably I think the most realistically dangerous one of them because it’s basically just taking a power drill to get your Achilles tendon. But like, like he, he puts holes in like human chests. You need to be on the ground, but Tunnler’s gonna get you.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. That’s for me, like if you’re talking really about almost any puppet villain, small villain your 90% of the game is getting somebody on the ground.

Get, get, get ’em down to your level, then you can mess with ’em a whole lot more and, or get someplace really high so you can jump down on them. But those are kind of your only options.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. Yeah. Again, it’s like, it’s like taking down a mammoth. It’s like watching caveman take down like a large prey animal.

It’s, it’s really fun to watch them work. It’s so, I love it so much more than just, all right. And then he jumps out and he stabs him with a knife, and, oh, maybe she’s taking a shower this time when he stabs her with a knife or he uses a chainsaw and this is like, how are they gonna pull this off?

David Dylan Thomas: Well, yeah, and like it forces the kills to be more creative because the, the the, because precisely because of that, because it’s so improbable that you little puppet are gonna be able to do anything.

I wanna talk a little more about this contrast between like the, the so, so to be fair, so Puppet Master comes out around like 89 or so.

So by then the slasher movie is kind of starting to go into decline, and like we’ve seen all the kills, like a normal sized human can do against another human. And so it’s almost refreshing at that point. But one of the other things I, I find the movies do that’s really interesting is the protagonists are never like just a bunch of teen kids, right?

It’s like in the first one, it’s psychics who are trying to like find out what happened to their fellow psychic. And the second one, it’s basically X-Files, like team X-Files. Like with a very obvious Scully stand-in. So it’s this one of my favorite genres, which is like, scientists try to investigate the paranormal and then it’s just, you know, Toulon versus Nazis and the third one.

But, but it’s never just, hey, here’s a bunch of teens who messed around and opened a box full of puppets and said the magic words and now they’re getting, Like, that is never where, where it’s interesting in going, which I think again, makes it a little more interesting than your average, like teen slasher.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah, they’re always capable adults. Like, it’s never like, like, oh man, our car broke down on the way to our, to the music festival we were going to guess we better go fuck in the woods. Like when somebody does get murdered as a result of having sex, they are, they are adults making the decision to do so.

I do, I do in terms of like the, the two in the first movie that get killed fucking? I do like that they are significantly less attractive than in any like, traditional horror movie and fuck so much more. Like it is not like they go to the woods to bang once. The other characters are like, oh my God, they’ve been going at it for like 12 hours. We’re trying to do a movie!

David Dylan Thomas: And it’s their thing too, right? Like the, so the psychic, the, the, the female psychic in that partnership is her whole thing is she can experience what people experienced in that space. So she’ll get to this bed that presumably has had movie stars fuck in it, and she just gets horny.

Right? And that’s her thing, right? So it’s not even like, oh, because she’s a woman we have to have a scene with her top off, it’s like, no, this is her kink. Even if there were no puppets, she would be fucking around.

Daniel Ludwig: It’s like, it, it’s like in a normal horror movie, it’s like, man, why would these teenagers wanna fuck in this haunted house?

And this like, we got a lore reason baby.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh yeah. Like this is her thing.

Daniel Ludwig: We saw that coming. Yeah. She has to because of her powers.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes, yes. This is, this is the spice. No, but it’s fascinating. And so the other thing I think is kind of interesting about, especially the, the, the, the first one is this notion that you have.

So one of the, the things that happens is there’s like the body of the guy, the, the psychic who they found that once they arrive, they found out is dead just keeps popping up all around the house. And he sort of have this reveal that he’s actually the one who’s in control of the puppets now. And there is this almost Lovecraftian mad scientist trope that sort of persists throughout these movies.

And the second one, it’s, it’s Toulon himself who’s sort of like gone full invisible man with like, goggles in a fucking like hat and all that stuff, and just has these boring ass monologues about how like, like exposition about how he’s getting revenge for his dead wife. And it’s just, but yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.

Daniel Ludwig: He is, he’s a little a my complaint with two is it’s a little padded and the padding is basically Toulon shows up and is weird.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes, yes.

Daniel Ludwig: They’re like, they’re like doing the movie and be like, I wonder why these puppets are killing people. And then he’s like, I would like to come in and do a monologue and say weird stuff about you.

Alright, bye.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. It was the, I gotta admit, two was the only one where I was like, okay, this is kind of boring. Which is too bad ’cause like, it has the ingredients to at least be like really goofy and fun. Like the first half hour or so when it really is just scientists investigating this thing and like, they don’t waste any time.

Like the puppet like kills, kills someone right outta the gate. Right. And it’s like, and it really, you’re right, it really does slow down once the bad guy shows up. Which is, which never what should happen.

Daniel Ludwig: It’s, it’s the most of a normal horror movie out of all of them. And so like, it’s the most, it’s the slowest because it’s them kind of doing the tropes and, and being like, and then you have this kill and then, you know, they, the, they slowly get picked off and then there’s the big third act where they realize what’s going on.

But I’d say the puppets are cooler in the second one. They get much more screen time and action. So you, you get to really see ’em work a lot more. I, which I think they, they probably got like a bigger budget. They had to be like a little selective with the puppets in the first one.

But yeah, it’s, it’s the most normal of them, so it’s kind of my least favorite.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Although, I will say of all the puppets I saw in the first three, the one I’m most, that I would least want to fight is in the second one. And that’s the one that, that can breathe fire.

Daniel Ludwig: Yes.

David Dylan Thomas: It’s like this sort of like German Nazi-ish looking dude with bullets for teeth and he just opens his mouth and can just literally like shoot fire at you.

That one is like, I don’t care how tall you are, that’s a danger.

Daniel Ludwig: Yes, absolutely. Imminent threat. Burns a child’s face off too. Probably. I would say hands down the biggest bastard ever.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, that’s right. They get ruthless on that one.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. Yeah, that one they really like show a child put his face up to the puppet’s, like, fire cannon and be like, you suck and I bet you’re not gonna hurt me in any way. And then cut to the next scene.

David Dylan Thomas: There is a line you cross. It’s funny ’cause I recently watched Piranha. And there is a line you cross when you put, not just put children in danger, but just straight out merk them and it’s like, oh my God. Because Piranha has a whole camp full of kids who for the most part get away.It could have been a lot worse, but they make it clear some didn’t make it. And now it’s like,

Daniel Ludwig: it’s,

David Dylan Thomas: oh no, go ahead. Oh,

Daniel Ludwig: go ahead. Sorry.

David Dylan Thomas: I was saying, I was like, oh, they’re trying to like up the ante from Jaws, and then I was like, oh, no, wait. Jaws is a kid, kid’s one of the first victims in Jaws, so it’s like, even Jaws, it’s like, oh yeah, nobody’s safe.

Daniel Ludwig: It’s, it’s an, it’s a, it’s a very like, big line. And I think like there’s sort of the longstanding, he was like, you, you don’t kill the kid. You, you leave the Christian girl alone and, and you don’t kill the kid. And, and so it is very much like an a, a proclamation when it’s like we’re killing kids up in here.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So let’s, let’s, so one of the things we kind of just like hinted at before is the sort of turn that happens. ’cause it seems like even going from one to three, the puppets start to take center stage. The puppets themselves start to become the protagonists. Even by the end of two, like, we’re actually following the puppets now in the like, you know final shot as they are apparently gonna go to like a, a mental institution for, for kids

Daniel Ludwig: A, a premise that is…

David Dylan Thomas: And then we just drop that and then we just drop that in the next movie completely.

Daniel Ludwig: Set up so intricately that this living mannequin woman is now taking these puppets on a puppet show to go and specifically says, we’re going to take them to a home for troubled teens and tots, where there will be no viable witnesses to our misdeeds.

And then the next one be like, let’s do a mansion again. Well yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: So, yeah, so talk about how the the puppets become the focus and how that, that kind of turn you were talking about.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. So one and two sort of flirt with this because they both end with the puppets rebelling against their master.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Daniel Ludwig: And the first one, it’s the, the fake dead guy who is doing this whole scheme to become immortal. And the puppet, he is mean to one of the puppets. He throws Jester. And so the other puppets are like, okay, cool. Fuck this guy. And they’re basically like, you protagonist, get outta here. You can go, we are going to slowly murder this man in an elevator, in a scene that takes so long.

It’s so satisfying.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, yeah,

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. To just, you’re just watching him slowly get taken down, like piece by piece. He’s like fighting the puppets. And then the same thing happens in the second one where they’re like, well, shit Toulon is also being mean to us. Let’s kill this prick too. And there’s that one’s like way quicker.

David Dylan Thomas: And it’s also like a total heel turn. ’cause he spends all this time in the movie talking about how unjust the puppets have been, been, been treated and like, how I know you’re hungry. I’m gonna get you this, like basically ReAnimator juice that’s gonna gonna make you better. And then when he finally gets it and he is like reviving his wife or whatever, he’s like, yeah, fuck you guys.

Just keeps going. It’s like, what the hell?

Daniel Ludwig: And then the puppets are all like, I think you might’ve forgotten that we all have weapons for our…

David Dylan Thomas: I know.

Daniel Ludwig: Like you made one of us that can shoot fire.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes. Yeah.

Daniel Ludwig: And so then we cut to the, the third one where it, it has a new director and a new creative team.

And this, with this one it is a prequel where it cuts back to, Toulon’s origins in in Nazi Berlin where he is doing, he, he already has his magic puppets. He’s using them to do puppet shows, making fun of Hitler. And the Nazis try to steal his secrets because they’re trying to create immortal life.

I think bring the dead back to life.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. As, as cover for, they wanna basically have the wounded or the dead on the field come back to life and become cover for the, for the still living on the field.

Daniel Ludwig: Yes. So in the process of trying to capture him, they kill his wife. So the puppet master goes John Wick on the Nazis.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes. Yes.

Daniel Ludwig: One of the most kickass premises for a movie. Yeah. Like one gr always great to flip a, a horror movie scenario on people that super have it coming. Like, and then the Nazis, it’s so much fun to watch Nazis get killed by these like little fuckers. And you know, it’s, it, it’s no longer, I don’t know if I would call it a horror movie, necessarily a horror.

David Dylan Thomas: It’s much more a revenge movie. It’s much more. It’s, it’s, it’s John Wick. It’s Death Wish. It’s, yeah. It’s just a revenge movie.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. So you just basically watch him very gradually kill kill these Nazis. He has a new puppet which is Tex, which is a, basically a centipede cowboy with a gun in each arm that does like this weird little like ha ha ha ha cackle.

David Dylan Thomas: They start to, over time they start to get more vocalizations for the puppets. It’s kind of neat.

Daniel Ludwig: Yes. And, and they, they reveal basically how these puppets are created, which is they are dead people that are like linked to these immortal puppet bodies. One of them was a truck driver who was killed for providing support to the Jews.

Another one is I think a former like one of his friends that was killed by the Nazis and Leech Lady, as we mentioned before, is his dead wife.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. Again, really weird way to keep your wife’s immortal soul by putting her in a little leach dispenser. But, and then Blade is ultimately revealed to be the Nazi that had, that killed his wife that he has now basically like forced into servitude.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. That actor by the way, is one of the best like villains they’ve had in that series. The sort of head Nazi stooge that is sort of is the one who kills his wife and is sort of like the big bad of this particular installment.

Daniel Ludwig: So effectively slimy like.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes. Yes.

Daniel Ludwig: Between like the, the way the character is, but also the way just they found a dude with a really good hateable face.

He really just looks like a, he looks like he would be slimy if you touched him. Like he somehow doesn’t really have lips. It’s all just one thing on his face, one solid surface.

David Dylan Thomas: And he is all like crackly and like almost half dead already. It’s just really troubling.

Daniel Ludwig: Yes, it’s, and it is. He, they kill him by suspending him from meat hooks and then putting a halberd underneath him and then setting fire to the rope that is holding him up by the meat hook so he eventually falls on that halberd

David Dylan Thomas: Cutting his strings, as it were.

Daniel Ludwig: Oh, shit. I didn’t even catch that. I’ve watched this movie like four times. Yeah. So it, and it, it’s just not only is it like, oh, the puppets are good now, but it is like the puppets have been good the whole time. They are. They’re the souls of people that helped Jews in Nazi Berlin that were then basically co-opted by motherfuckers.

And, and coerced into doing evil shit. So just complete reversal of the premise. And, and really like for the remainder of the series, refocuses it around like the relationship to, to Nazi Germany. And like from here on out for, in a majority of cases, the puppets are now the good guys.

David Dylan Thomas: Okay.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. The series kind of goes downhill for a while with four and five when it returns to the modern era. Just because the puppets are good guys now. Who they, they never really find good, bad guys for the puppets. They have them fight demons. Like there’s, there’s demon versions of little fuckers and the puppets have to fight the other little fuckers.

David Dylan Thomas: So we get some puppet on puppet violence.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. Doesn’t really, it doesn’t really work. There’s like a new main guy who is just a white kid with a mullet named Rick, who’s like, and the puppets are like, you’re the new puppet master. And then after that doesn’t work for a minute. They do retro puppet master, which is the prequel to the prequel.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh geez.

Daniel Ludwig: Starring Mark from The Room doing the worst fucking French accent you’ve ever heard in your entire life. Basically unwatchable just from how bad that dude’s acting is. And then they were just like, you know what? We kind of nailed it with the Nazi thing. Let’s just have him kill Nazis for like five more movies.

And then after that S. Craig Zoller gets his hands on it, does a reboot, starring Thomas Lennon. S. Craig Zoller is the guy that did Brawl in Cell Block 99 and Dragged Across Concrete and made a movie that was, I guess, critically acclaimed. But I fucking despise and I have accusations I wanna level against S. Craig Zoller that I don’t know if it’s, if it’s good to do on someone else’s podcast.

Andre Toulon’s a Nazi now and all the puppets are Nazis and they do a lot of Nazi stuff and it sure does seem like the movie is happy about that. Yeah, it really feels like they’re like, yeah, Nazis. Except, and then like, kind of like in small print, Nazis are bad. Don’t be Nazis.

David Dylan Thomas: Okay, well this what, so when did that movie come out?

Daniel Ludwig: That movie came out, let’s see, it is Puppet Master, the Littlest Reich, which came out in 2018.

David Dylan Thomas: So this was like, okay, so yeah, the timing of this is curious, right? ’cause what I was gonna say earlier when we were saying like the wisdom of making the Nazis, the targets but I was gonna say is until recently everyone agreed that Nazis are bad.

By the time you get to 2018, that is not as commonly held a belief as one would like.

Daniel Ludwig: There. There is a scene I watched the Littlest Rech with with Marty my co-host. And he made me turn it off after one scene where a Jewish man does a whole monologue about how they survived the Nazis.

And they now stand as living proof that good can triumph over evil and how their people can persevere through anything. And then immediately after that one of Torch burns his whole ass face off. And yeah, Marty was like, you need to turn this off. I’m not watching another frame of it. And I was like, yeah, no, I feel disgusting after watching it.

Yeah. As, S. Craig Zola interesting subtext to that man’s career.

David Dylan Thomas: No, I was just gonna say no, it’s, it’s, I’ve seen a couple of his movies. I’ve seen Bone Tomahawk and I’ve seen, I Brawl and Cell Block 99. It’s not like you watch those movies. These are just like grindcore movies.

Like these are just standard seventies grindhouse, but with, you know, nine or with, you know, modern lighting, right. And effects. So on the face of ’em, they’re just like strong horror movies and, and really disturbing. If you layer in oh, he might be a fascist, you watch them and you’re like, okay, these movies aren’t not fascist. You’re like, remains plausible.

I’ll put it that way. Right. It’s not like you’re watching the the Lethal Weapon films and being like, wait, was Richard Donner secretly right wing? ’cause he had Mel Gibson. But then you watch and like literally every movie has like a condom ad and like a pro-choice poster and like an literally a whole movie about anti-apartheid and like, okay, probably not.

These movies are sort of like, I could see a right wing person really loving this, maybe missing the point, but really loving this.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah, it’s Brawl in Cell Block 99 is weird because I really loved that movie watching and then I was like, man, that sure was a movie about Vince Vaughn with a shaved head and a cross tattooed on the back of it, beating up Latino men.

He sure do, did beat up a lot of minorities in that movie. And also shoot an abortion doctor. So, on paper. And cool fights.

David Dylan Thomas: And Bone Tomahawk is like a solid western and then just goes off the deep end into gorn in the last like 20 minutes. And, you know, has some really troubling things to say about like how, just how bad one could treat a woman or treat an entire gender mm-hmm if you wanted to. And yet it’s also the monsterization of a tribe. If we’re really being clear, it’s kind of troubling. Right. So yeah. So again, it’s sort of like in retrospect if he did turn out to be kind of a Trumper, I would not be surprised. I’d be, I, I would be disappointed. Just as disappointed anybody becomes a Trumper, but like in that case, be like, ah, yeah, yeah.

I could see that. I could see that.

Daniel Ludwig: I do wanna circle back to something you mentioned with, I just watched Lethal Weapon two for the first time, and Mel Gibson being in like, it, it being Mel Gibson kind of retroactively turns it into a comedy. ’cause every time, yeah. He is like, oh man, White Ethnostates sure are bad.

David Dylan Thomas: But that’s the thing. He was, he was convincing. That’s the thing. You watch these movies and later when stuff starts coming out, you’re like, like the first part where you’re sort of like, okay, maybe Mel’s a little hardcore there is, is is Passion of the Christ. He directs Passion of the Christ.

Although if you’re watching Braveheart carefully, you could kind of already see it going this way. But, but as a, so as a creator, once he actually gets creative control over his projects, but prior to that, like, he’s charming Mel, right? And he’s on the side, he’s on the same side as the people making the movies he’s in.

And Richard Donner was pretty damn liberal. So.

Daniel Ludwig: Yes, absolutely. I feel like maybe he was trying to get notes in there every now and then. Like he was like, just, just real quick, maybe we put in a scene where the South Africans kind of have a point. Maybe we like just, you know, it’s kind of like a little ambi.

No, no, that’s totally cool. That’s totally cool. Don, I’m, I agree that we don’t need that. I also agree. We’ll talk more about it later.

David Dylan Thomas: So yeah, it’s, it’s, I I wanna talk a little bit about the, the legacy of Puppet Master, right? So why for you have these movies endured? Why do we keep making them? Like, what’s, what’s, what’s the special sauce here?

Daniel Ludwig: So I think. I think there is. So the, the thing they really set out to do with with Moonlight Studios. To circle back to, to initially is what the reason it didn’t go right to theaters was basically they said like, we wanna do the quality of major horror releases, but we wanna do it like smarter and cheaper.

And, and we wanna do that and then own home, move home video.

David Dylan Thomas: Right. Okay.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. So basically they were like, we wanna be a big fish in a small pond. And I think like from day one, what the goal of this franchise has been has sort of been to like subvert standard horror tropes. To not do like the easy formulaic stuff to, to really like bring something else to the table.

And, and really like experiment. And like even when these movies are bad and they get, they can be bad, like four and five are shit. Even when they’re doing that, they are trying something weird. And they are fully committing to it. Like the, the movie really loves the puppets.

Like they love them. There’s, it, it’s something like, I think they sort of slowly realize over one and two of like, man, we really love these little sons of bitches. Like, let’s make three where they’re, it’s all about how great they are. I think like that sort of affection for it kind of, kind of is what makes it persevere.

And I think there’s also like I think, we’ll, we’ll talk about it when we get into KK Comeuppance.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Daniel Ludwig: But there is sort of something really, really rich about the mythology of human beings being converted into dolls. Yeah. I think there’s like sort of a, a lot of like thematic nuance.

I think there is something really interesting about the, the horror movie monster being weaker than you.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Ludwig: And having to like overcome you strategically and mentally and like, and really like prey upon your weaknesses. I think that’s sort of something we we see that’s interesting about like little horror villains.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. And just to, to, to riff on that for a bit, I recently watched Of Unknown Origin, which I like to call Rat Versus Robocop ’cause it’s basically Peter Weller in an uptown Manhattan apartment and he has a ridiculously large rat that over the course of the film they sort of escalate in their war against each other until finally it’s an all out brawl.

But I think part of what the film is doing is, you know, Peter Weller plays this sort of like high powered finance dude, and it’s like an age when what we would call at the time we would call a yuppie, right? Like, so this urban, young, urban professional. And there’s an arrogance to that, right? And what these movies where something’s smaller than you is kicking your ass is there’s a certain humbling.

Right? Moral that you can have in these things where it’s like, okay, you think you’re hot shit, but this tiny little thing is kicking your ass. How does that feel? And a lot of the movie is this very not subtle Captain Ahab trip of like, you are now obsessed. You were like super powerful in all these ways, but you are now obsessed with this one little thing.

And that alone means it’s winning.

Daniel Ludwig: I think like you can, you can sort of say there’s, I’m gonna go way over my skis with this echoes of the Vietnam War in it.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh hell yes.

Daniel Ludwig: Where you have something that’s like, I should be kicking this thing’s ass. It’s so much smaller than me. This is so frustrating that it keeps getting won over on me.

Like I, I, I have, I’m stronger than this thing. I should be able to decimate it.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh yeah. And, and that’s, you know, I think very much the context for like, even before when you were talking about like the guerilla tactics the puppets need to use, I’m like, in the back of my head I was like, yep, that’s Vietnam.

But yeah, that really is literally Vietnam, that’s how they won, was like, they knew the terrain better, they had better strategy. They weren’t reliant. They weren’t reliant on their technology. Right. They didn’t have the arrogance of, of sailing on that. They knew they had to be smarter. They knew they had to be tougher.

Daniel Ludwig: Yes. And I think like in a lot of ways experiencing that kind of like permanently got into the heads of Americans in a lot of things. And we sort of just, just kept making movies about that over and over again. Like, I think, like Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Die Hard’s a Vietnam movie.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: Say more now.

Daniel Ludwig: Okay. I think Die Hard is a movie about, I think this is sort of subconsciously made, but Die Hard is a movie about somebody that is up against a force that is superior to him on paper in every way that is significantly less armed and has to use superior knowledge of the terrain to, to overcome that, this invader.

And I think like there was a long stretch where we basically kept making movies about like, what if a white guy was the Viet Cong? Wouldn’t that be sick?

David Dylan Thomas: I mean, let’s, let’s call it what it is. Like literally like Lucas talked about how Star Wars was Vietnam, where the empire was us. I mean, yeah.

Talk about making the white guys Vietnamese. I mean, come on. You know.

Daniel Ludwig: Mother motherfucking First Blood is basically what if a white guy got to be the Viet Cong? It’s, yeah. It, they just went like, this is super frustrating to deal with. It would be, but it does look cool. I wish I was on that side of it.

David Dylan Thomas: I mean, I, I think there’s an interesting dynamic within action films, especially action films of the eighties, but just in general where there is this, on the one hand, obsession with our technology and the destructive power of our technology.

So if you were to contrast like, Commando with Predator, right? So in Predator we’ve got all this technology and we spend the first half hour of the movie kicking ass, but then we’re faced with something that is superior to us and it kicks our ass, right? And all our technology goes to naught.

Commando, he’s using technology, he’s got like all that stuff, but he’s the, he’s now the underdog. But we, we, yeah, we, so we, we have this almost dichotomous relationship with being the underdog in American cinema, but especially in action. And in some ways in horror where it’s like, who do we really wanna sympathize with?

I think that’s why, part of the reason why in horror, we do sometimes tilt toward making the villain more interesting and ultimately sympathizing more with the villain. Part of it is how we frame the victims, right? It’s like, oh, you’re just silly teens having sex, or you’re, you know, stupid little psychics being arrogant.

So there’s a comeuppance thing we work with, but there’s also this tension between is the, is the villain the underdog, or is the villain, you know, the, the yeah, the overdog. We, we, we play with that a lot and like literally in this franchise, it seems like we went through this arc of that where it’s like, well, actually these are our heroes now.

You know?

Daniel Ludwig: Yes.  I kind of did you, did you, you, did you see the new Halloweens, the reboots that Danny…

David Dylan Thomas: No.

Daniel Ludwig: Okay. So I hate them but they kind of do this where they, they sort of are like, well, Mike Meyers is kind of the protagonist now. We’re kind of really enjoying like seeing his perspective on it.

And it sucks because you’re just watching like a big guy kill a bunch of like innocent people. From his perspective. And it’s like, I’m, I’m on Michael Meyer’s team right now, and he’s just stabbing like kids. And, and so it, like, it feels gross because he’s the person with all the power in this scenario.

Yeah. So it’s like, it’s this feeling of like punching down. The, the villain being this big like wall of raw power works when like you are sympathizing with the person surviving against it.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Ludwig: But when once you start doing the thing where you’re on the villain’s side, in that scenario, that’s when I sort of start to feel gross about it.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. And I think that’s just turns into like a… Go ahead.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh no. I just say no, I, I think that’s, that’s that’s actually a good segue ’cause I think power is the word I was trying to get at, but I, I hadn’t quite found what, like the power dynamics of any horror movie are like really important. So so when you asked me to, I was gonna say made me, but no, I had a good time.

When you asked me to watch these puppet master movies, I was like, and as I was, I was watching them, I was like, oh my God, I’ve gotta ask Daniel to watch Tales from the Hood and in particular the middle story called KKK Comeuppance and KKK Comeuppance is basically, so Tales from the Hood is like any anthology horror, like Tales from the Crypt or Creepshow, just a series of tales.

But being Tales from the Hood, it focuses on urban Black stories. Right? And so we have one about like a cop who like kills a black guy, unarmed black guy. And then there’s like sort of a zombie comeuppance from that. We have like an abusive family. We have sort of like a drug morality tale.

But all of these are relayed by a, crypt keeper, quote unquote, like a guy who owns a mortuary talking to these three yoots were there to get their drugs, I believe. In any case the middle, one of the middle stories is KKK Comeuppance, and it’s Corbin Berenson of LA Law fame and Psych fame playing a politician who’s running for office, I think for Senate in the south and has taken over this like plantation, former plantation.

And there’s people protesting outside. And and part of the legend of this plantation is that there was the, the owner of that plantation like just went crazy when the, when the Civil War ended. And instead of releasing his slaves, killed them, like murdered them in horrible ways. And this one sort of voodoo priestess kind of came along and infused their souls into these dolls, but nobody can find the dolls.

So as the story goes on, there’s a big giant painting of this voodoo priestess with all her little dolls. And then people start dropping like his, his Black advisor who’s helping win the Black vote, played by classic Black actor’s, been on a lot of, a lot of stuff. Gets merked because he trips over one of the dolls, and that’s kind of the beginning and the whole time there’s this other dude who’s sort of like the, the the harbinger character who’s Black guy. He’s like, you gotta get outta there. Don’t live there. The dolls, they’re gonna get you. They’re gonna, you know, and he’s like doing that. And then finally, Corbin Berenson starts to worry about this. He sees the doll in the video of the guy dying, and he also notices that that doll is no longer in the painting.

And this is one of the best horror devices I had forgotten about this, but this is one of the best horror devices because you have now created kind of a visual code for the audience, where every time you see a doll not in the painting, that doll is now in, in has, has entered the chat. Is now in play and he’s gotta worry about that, which leads to this fantastic shot where he’s like, been fighting this one doll and getting his ass whooped.

And kind of backs into frame. And then you see now before he sees it, you. All of the fucking dolls are gone from the painting, and you’re like, oh, shit. But it does, it does a really great job of I mean, and, and, and the reason we are along for the ride, right, is, you know, this is an easy, well, at the time, an easy target.

He even has the name Duke, which, and, and the idea is that he used to be in the KKK. Well at the time we had David Duke, who literally ran for office at, after being president of the KKK. So there’s not, not subtle, that’s not what we’re trying to do here. But, but but yeah, like if you think about the power there, that is very much a story of literal white power.

And how do we fight that with these quote unquote underdogs?

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah, I, so once I saw that his name was Duke, I was like, I guess I gotta re bone up on David Duke’s history, so let’s go check out that Wikipedia page. And the, I, so I checked on his run for governor. And he did get 30% of the vote.

I, the thing I did not know about him in this time period was he was former KKK, not by choice. They kicked him out for being too much of a fucker.

David Dylan Thomas: Really? I didn’t know that at all.

Daniel Ludwig: He was trying to sell their mailing list for like $30k. So they were like, well, guess what? You’re not in the KKK anymore.

So it wasn’t even like in this, he’s like at least pretending to be like, like kind of half paying lip service to being like it’s a good thing I’m not in the KKK anymore. Original David Duke was like, I’m not in the KKK anymore because they because I’m too much of the whole deal for them.

So yeah, so I absolutely love this. I loved all of Tales from the Hood. The toys has much more of a sort of a, a swarm quality to them. Like when, when it, when it’s just one, the real thing about it is just that it does not let up. It’s, it’s not that, it’s like really conniving or finding angles.

It’s just like it is coming at him.

David Dylan Thomas: It is, “I’m just gonna bite your neck.” That’s it. Like if I, that’s all I got is my teeth. I’m biting you to death.

Daniel Ludwig: Yes. So like, when it’s. When it’s all of them, it is very much like a, like sort of an ants descending on something. Where it’s, it’s just so satisfying to watch.

David Dylan Thomas: I do, I do feel like they didn’t have a lot of time to shoot because once they show up he just sort of just falls to the ground. It’s really. He makes it easy for ’em. It’s like he just, I’m, I’m glad you’re, you’re getting taken out here, but dude, like try.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah, exactly.

David Dylan Thomas: Like make it, make it fun for them.

Come on.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. I don’t think, I don’t think they wanted to give David Duke a whole lot of wins here.

I do. So something, I, something I felt found really interesting about this in particular, and something I kind of saw reflected in the other stories was it really dials in on the black campaign manager. That is really kind of helping helping Duke sanitize his image and like. Duke is coming on too strong.

He’s he’s like not playing it right, and this guy is coming in and correcting him. And arguably the most racist line that that Duke says comes from the black campaign manager. Something I’m not super comfortable saying on a recorded on a recorded system, but yeah, like and the, the first one is very concerned with a Black cop that stands by as a as another Black man is beaten by fellow police officers.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Daniel Ludwig: The, the second one is, is domestic abuse, but the third one is very much about a a Black man that who’s, who’s like he was like a gangster who kills people so prolifically that a white supremacist is like, hell yeah, man.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Ludwig: We’re on the same team. And so like, I think it is like sort of an interesting through line of like is sellouts the right, the right word? Black men that are complicit?

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Basically. Traitors? I mean, you can call it. Yeah, call it what you want, but yeah, like that there is no, that is interesting. I mean, you can even argue the domestic abuse one is kind of like that because it’s a Black man, it’s a Black David Alan Grier actually in a rare villainous turn playing an abusive dad.

So another Black traitor, if you will. But no, I think that’s a, that’s, that’s totally valid. And in a way the, ’cause these are all morality tales, right? Like this is horror as morality tale, pure and simple and just with a very particular Black context. But even the funeral owner is very much relaying these as such to the three gentlemen he’s escorting to the thing as if to say, you are the problem and I’m gonna give you all these tales so you don’t become like these other black traitors. You know what I mean?

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. It’s about abandoning and abusing your community in the face of adversity.

And I think there’s a lot of like African American literature from around like the Jim Crow era there, where like the real, it, it was like stories about like, it really dialed in on like of people in the African American community that did this. Where it was like, you know, sort of the same, like white people are gonna do white people shit.

And what we are really concerned on is the people that turn their back onto us either like try to as like, try to like. Like find a purchase amongst the existing power structure or people that take advantage of others in our community.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Daniel Ludwig: Like there was, there there, there was one story I remember reading, which was a woman hides a young man that was being chased by a group of white men.

And then she finds out after she helps hide him that he had just killed her son.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm.

Daniel Ludwig: So I think this sort of like reminded me of all that, of like, this is almo. That that was almost like early African American horror. So, yeah. Sorry. Am I up, am I way out in front of my skis on this?

David Dylan Thomas: No, no, no.

What you’re, what you’re, what you’re bringing up though, which I think is an interesting take on Tales from the Hood, is it, is it skirts, respectability politics. Right? Which I don’t think it’s actually doing exactly, ’cause I do think it is much more concerned with that idea of like, the, the dangerous, dangerous to the community, but it’s hard to miss the the targets of, or the aggressors in a lot of these stories.

Right. Especially the fact that he’s, you know, escorting a bunch of bangers through this mortuary, right? That, that it’s, it’s very easily confused for, or parading as a a a, a light. I could see someone who’s into respectability politics liking this movie, right. And seeing, like, see, this is why you gotta pull up your pants.

Right. The, the, the final doll I want to hit on before we close out is kind of, I’d say like the Grand Master of All Evil Dolls. And that is Chucky. And Chucky as well comes from kind of this like outside perspective, I believe the creator of Chucky was queer and there’s a lot of queer themes threaded through a lot of the Chucky films, especially the third one.

And what was interesting, just as a side note that I’m still unpacking, I recently was asked to speak at a juvenile detention center and one of the things I would always ask at the beginning of the group I was in was, hey, who here likes scary movies? What are your favorite scary movies? And this is like, you know, 13 to 18 mostly Black kids.

The most consistent answer. And I would say by like 70% Chucky. People fucking love Chucky. Yeah. I was surprised too, like very consistently and I, again, I’m still unpacking that. But I think there is something about this like little guy who is a total fucking badass, right? Like being a teenager and respecting a badass.

That’s easy math, but, but a total badass in this tiny little package, right? And there’s, there’s a fair amount of you know, Black protagonist kind of peppered throughout the series, but especially again, especially the third one, which might be my favorite, I don’t know. But but yeah, I found that really interesting.

I find Chucky to be an interesting evolution of all these kind of puppet tropes we’ve been talking about this whole episode.

Daniel Ludwig: So I don’t have a lot of experience with the Child’s Play movies because I saw the box art on a, on a VHS of Child’s Play as a kid and conceptually scared the shit out of me so profoundly that I had like an almost like animalistic aversion to it. Like if I saw a Child’s Play, like VHS, you could use it to like repel me, like a cross with a vampire. I was like, one of my, one of my toys is evil and going to kill me with a knife? No, I don’t even wanna invite that idea into my head.

So I, I never saw one until like, Seed of Chucky was on HBO when I was like a high schooler and I was like, well, Jennifer Tilly’s hot, so I guess I gotta watch this. So I, yeah. I have only, I, like, I tr I, I watched most of Child’s Play one recently, like in my thirties. And even then, like, I was like, ooh, this is like bringing back some like some aversion, which I, so I’m surprised that kids are so, are so into it.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh man. Like crazy. I mean, there’s, there is, we underestimate how much kids love horror. There is a TV show called Evil, which I highly recommend anyone who wants to see it. But the main character has like 4 tween girls. And half the time the plot revolves around some weird, spooky shit that they’re getting into online.

But it feels so realistic ’cause that’s what teen girls do. Like people. When you’re a kid, there’s, there’s the darkness you love to play with. There’s the darkness you don’t wanna fuck with, which in your case was Chucky, but there’s the darkness you love to play with. Right. So I think that I, I wasn’t necessarily surprised, I was surprised at like which horror franchise they dialed in on.

But after the first few times, I wasn’t surprised that the majority of students would say, yeah, I love horror. When I asked if they love horror and they were very cogent and they were like, yep, I, I know this, I know this, I know this. And a lot of stuff I haven’t even seen yet. So yeah, I like, I got that.

But why Chucky? I haven’t really like unpacked exactly.

Daniel Ludwig: So there is, there, there is a show out right now that is apparently really good. I think it’s like on like their, their third season. I think maybe it’s and I’m shooting from the hip a little bit, but maybe it’s that like so much horror is elevated now.

It is like thematically complex that maybe there is like sort of an appetite for like, people that didn’t really like live through the nineties and eighties and early two thousands, where it like, where they don’t get as many just dumb slashers where there’s a guy with a knife and he’s coming to get you.

Like, and it doesn’t represent that much stuff. Like it’s just what if there was a what if, what if Chucky is coming to get you? And he doesn’t represent trauma like every, every other monster now.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, were just a creep? ’cause I think one thing that separates Chucky from the rest, the rest being, you know, killer puppets Chucky talks.

Right? Chuckie talks a lot and Chuckie, Chuckie is kind of like the Freddy Kruger to the Jasons and the Mike Myers, who are just silent killers. Freddy Krueger breathed fresh life into the slasher because he was clever, because, I mean, he was scary as fucks conceptually, but over time he also got a wit to him.

So by the time you get to three or four, it’s just cracking one-liners. Chucky is very similar. It’s like once you accept the okay. It’s a living doll because someone’s soul is in it. Well, what if that soul was just a bastard serial killer? And Chucky is spitting one-liners like Chucky and Freddy should do like a rap battle.

Like they’re, they’re equally talented at just spitting the one-liners, like the cheesy Arnold Schwarzenegger one-liners when they do their kills. And I think that might be part of why Chucky stands out, or one of the reasons he stands out in this sort of like killer doll vein as opposed to these other very silent, you know, I’m so trying not to say silent, but deadly.

But it’s, it’s, it, it, it’s happening.

Daniel Ludwig: It’s, it’s outta the way. Now.

David Dylan Thomas: Let’s get it, let’s get past it.

Daniel Ludwig: We’ve cleared the air, so to speak.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh my god. You don’t have to help. But yeah, I think that might be the, one of the advantages Chucky has is that he’s actually getting into it where these other dolls are silently like.

Like grunting maybe. And that’s it.

Daniel Ludwig: They, they get little sound effects like as they’re, but I, I mean off of the Freddy Krueger and, and Chucky thing, Freddy Krueger is anywhere from like this, like in the first one, he’s just kind of this other worldly force and some, and he will do a pun when he kills you.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Ludwig: And then even at his like lightest and most personality, he’s like closer to like Bugs Bunny. He’s kind of doing that. Chucky’s just a dude.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes.

Daniel Ludwig: He’s just a fucking guy in a doll who is like talking like a human man and he’ll do one-liners, but most of the time he is like, man, I sure do wish I had a human body.

David Dylan Thomas: He’s almost vaudevillian, you know?

Daniel Ludwig: Yes.

David Dylan Thomas: Because, yeah. ’cause Freddy Kruger is like a horrible human being that something horrible happens to and is like got all this. And as a, a relatively elaborate revenge plan.

Chucky is a horrible serial killer who just didn’t want to die and. And was like needs as must happened to be near a doll when he was dying, and it’s like, okay, I happen to know some voodoo.

I love that. I just, I love moments in horror where like the whole thing rests on one, just totally random. It’s like I happen to be near some leeches. I happen to know some voodoo because that’s how I am and gets himself in a doll.

And every, at least for the first three, it’s just, Hey, I need to get back in a body. That’s it. I have no big grand revenge plans. I’m not trying to, like, I, I just, I just wanna not be in a doll. That’s it.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. And, and I think like his, also his, the secret sauce of, of Chucky’s killing ability is gaslighting because he just goes Toy Story.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Daniel Ludwig: And like crazy. And so everybody is like, kid, shut up. It’s just a doll. It’s not trying to kill you. And like he, that’s like his, his default move is like stab, stab, uhoh, adult go limp.

Which the, the, the puppet masters have to go through the puppets, have to go through the vents and shit. Chucky can just like, yeah, just, just disappear on you. Yeah. That is, that is from the first one. One of the things I felt so stressed out is like, man, it sure would suck if I was this kid and nobody believed me for the entire goddamn movie.

David Dylan Thomas: That, that is a trope in movies I find like very frustrating. I mean, it’s a valid, dramatic technique, but like the whole, I nobody believes it. It’s, it’s sort of like I think my, my, my least favorite version of this is Fright Night. If you’ve ever seen the original Fright Night. Vampire moves in next door and the main character witnesses him doing a kill and then just blabs to anyone who will listen. My neighbor’s a vampire, and I’m like, dude, have some self-awareness here.

Daniel Ludwig: Yes.

David Dylan Thomas: Like, no one’s gonna just, you’re, you’re making it, you’re making it harder for yourself to win. Just.

Daniel Ludwig: It, I generally find it like a very tiresome formula because you, you just kind of know how it’s gonna go or he’s gonna think he has proof and then at the last second, the bad guy’s gonna like, like subvert and everybody is gonna be like, damn it Joey, you misled us.

And then at the end, somebody’s gonna believe him and then get stabbed.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes, yes, yes.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: I think that the only couple times I’ve seen this done well, so Invisible Man does it. The the new one. It does it beautifully. ’cause it really, ’cause it’s literally a movie about gaslighting, so it works, right? Like that is the terror.

They, they mean for it to be terror. The other time I see it, I’ve seen it done really well, is in have you seen The Lost Boys?

Daniel Ludwig: Yes.

David Dylan Thomas: Okay. So in The Lost Boys, they suspect. Edward Herman to be a vampire, but they don’t just come out and say it. They test him. Right? Which is actually very old school.

That’s how in Van Helsing, in the original Dracula, he doesn’t say, oh, you’re you’re, you’re a Dracula. He just sort of does, I’m gonna put this mirror here, see what happens. Right. That I, I guess it’s because that’s a more clever way, and honestly, I believe a more intelligent or a realistic way to approach the situation and also allows for like the sort of feint you get in Lost Boys.

But like that I, I always prefer just sort of like, nobody believes me. It’s like, motherfucker, I wouldn’t believe you. Like, try harder.

Daniel Ludwig: Also, it, it does sort of help to break up the plot structure by having a oily saxophone man. Every now and then.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes. See, this is what, this is the lesson Joel Schumacher has for us modern vampire makers.

See, this is, this is the lesson that Sinners had is if you’re gonna do a vampire movie, have great music. That’s it. That’s the formula. I don’t know why, I don’t know why everybody isn’t doing this.

Daniel Ludwig: Exactly. Yeah. Just whenever things, whenever you have a downbeat, just break into an impromptu long kickass musical number.

Just do that instead of the middle part where people say a bunch of bullshit.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, it’s like, I remember the f so I, I recently watched Sinners for the second time and it, it gets even better. But but I remember the first time what I posted to Blue Sky was like I say this with all a, a as a strong compliment.

Sinners is the best horror musical since Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Daniel Ludwig: Do. So do you think it’s a musical, because that has been like a, a topic of a talking conversation?

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, sure.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah, I think it’s, I think it qualifies. I think like I think it has enough in there. It’s a, it’s integral enough to the plot.

Some people are like, no, it has to be like, actually people are. You know, singing their emotions and doing group dances.

David Dylan Thomas: They are though.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah, that is true.

David Dylan Thomas: The song is called, I Lied to You. It’s literally about his father, right? And the the the Irish jig they’re doing, the lyrics of that are very tied into what they’re about.

Like they are singing their feelings. They’re just doing it deigetically. That’s the only difference

Daniel Ludwig: I. I have been listening to the Sinners soundtrack pretty much on repeat since I got there. And I am like, I don’t wanna see the statistics of how many times the one I have gone back to is Rocky Road to Dublin.

I’m like, Ugh, there’s so much great music here. How can I keep listening to the fucking Irish jig? It’s so catchy.

David Dylan Thomas: But the Irish jig is good. That’s one of the things I respect about Sinners is that it’s like saying we all have this history and our relationships to that history, you know, kind of judges us and what we do.

What are we willing to do to get back to it? I’m not, I’m, I’m not, I’m not gonna get too spoilery on Sinners ’cause it’s pretty new. But it’s, it’s, it’s enough to say that. It doesn’t just say, oh, Black people have history and, and Asian people have history. It’s like, no, no. Everybody in this little mix of oppression versus oppressors.

Everybody in this mix has history and it’s our relationship to it, or lack thereof that’s driving a lot of this shittiness that we’re experiencing in the movie. But no, I, no, I, the, the, the Irish, the Irish numbers slap, I’m not gonna lie.

Daniel Ludwig: I mean, you what you, what you said about history.

Yeah. Oh God. It’s so hard to, to not just spoil the shit out of this right now, but Yeah. Like the villains in that do are not, they do represent their own unique form of counterculture.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes, yes, yes. They do. They really do and that’s one of the, that’s part of the point. That’s very much the point.

Daniel Ludwig: Yes.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Daniel Ludwig: Yes.

David Dylan Thomas: So everyone go see Sinners is what we’re saying. And then come back and we’ll have a whole other mass podcast about like podcast series about Sinners. ’cause that’s, that’s how much there is there.

Daniel Ludwig: We can just do a whole episode of times guys get shot. We could just go through, we, we could go through times somebody pulls out a pistol and shoots somebody and we could like rank them like top to bottom. Each one is a beautiful snowflake.

David Dylan Thomas: We are, we are gonna close on one of my favorite moments from Puppet Master Three. So the new puppet, by the way, part of, I think what makes the Puppet Master Series work is you get this kind of X-Men quality where like you get to introduce new puppets with new abilities and like reintroduce old ones or whatever.

Like, you get to, you get, you get, you get that. That’s just a dynamic. That’s a great for lore. But one of the ones that gets introduced in the third one is the six shooter called Tex, who’s basically like Woody if you’re an evil puppet with six arms. And there’s a scene where Woody shoots a Nazi and later on the Nazis are at the crime scene.

And like one of the bullets like went into like the wall and the guy, one of the Nazis pulls it out and is sort of like, I have never seen such a tiny bullet. I was cracking up. That’s the best scene in that movie. I’m like, that’s fan. I wanna see the Sherlock Holmes installment of Puppet Master where puppets are doing Jack the Ripper all over London and Sherlock Holmes investigates and he keeps finding these tiny, the stab wound is so tiny.

Daniel Ludwig: I do, I do have actually something cool to close on. Do you want to hear some of the, you know, the, the X-Men roster?

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, sure. Yes.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. Okay. So we got Blade, pinhead, jester, tunneler, six shooter, and Leach Woman Torch we already talked about. And then from here it goes. And I, I don’t know, almost all, I don’t know any of these guys is Decapitron, Djinn, Genji, Shreddercon, Mephisto, Dr. Death, Drill Sergeant, Cyclops, Retro Blade, Retro Pinhead, Retro Six Shooter, Tank, Mutant, Ninja, Blitzkrieg, Bombshell, Kamikaze, Weremacht, and Happy Amphibian.

David Dylan Thomas: Okay. There’s a degree of. You know puppet or mutant or Puppet or Transformer, you can do with some of these. But Decapitron is my favorite of all of those.

Just on name alone. Oh my God.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah. I’m very curious about Happy Amphibian. What could, could that, what could that possibly be? There’s so many possibilities. Is it some sort of tongue noose?

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, you’re going right to like, how does it kill you? I’m still stuck on like. Is it just like a frog puppet? Oh.

The other thing, the other thing I wanted to say, so at the beginning of Puppet Master three Toulon is doing like a puppet show with a fake Hitler. And I’m like, oh shit, are we gonna get a Puppet Hitler? Is that gonna be the bad guy? ’cause like, wow, they really went there.

Daniel Ludwig: No Toulon’s chill as hell. We’re just gonna see that puppet Hitler get his ass beat.

David Dylan Thomas: All right, Daniel, it has been a pleasure. Love to have you back some time to as you say, go through every shot fired in Sinners. And yeah, at where can people find you and your work?

Daniel Ludwig: So on social media, you can find us on BreakingMayberry.BlueSky.Social. You can find Breaking Mayberry anywhere that you listen to podcasts. I think right now where we should be when this comes out is doing a marathon of Glee to torture ourselves.

David Dylan Thomas: Nice.

Daniel Ludwig: Yeah, which is more horrifying than anything we have talked about here.

David Dylan Thomas: Well, thank you so much. And listeners I have been on two episodes of Breaking Mayberry one epic episode about the Hollywood arc on the show, and then one episode we did about I Saw the TV glow, so check those out.

I had a great time. And for the White Meat Podcast, I’m your host, David Dylan Thomas, and we will see you next time.