Editorials
Why NECA’s New ‘Puppet Master’ Action Figures Mean So Much for Longtime Fans
When I was eight years old, I picked up a toy magazine on a trip to Borders with my dad. I was a huge X-Men fan and my favorite villain, Mr. Sinister, was on the cover. So I guess I have Mr. Sinister to thank for introducing me to my greatest childhood—and, to a degree, adulthood—obsession. The magazine was an issue of Lee’s Action Figure News and Toy Review, covering Toy Fair 1998, with extensive coverage of a whole slew of toy lines for the upcoming year. I hit the middle of that magazine and things changed for young me, when I stopped dead on a double-page spread showcasing Puppet Master: The Action Figure Series. I had no idea what Puppet Master was. I was firmly getting into horror by that age, but hadn’t dipped much at all beyond Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, maybe Halloween by that point. But it didn’t matter.
As soon as I saw those figures, as soon as I caught a glimpse of those dynamic, macabre character designs, I was hooked. So why am I bringing that up right now?
I’m mentioning it because on Halloween, NECA, the absolute leader in accessible, quality horror collectibles, announced that they were making Puppet Master figures. In particular, new ultra-detailed Ultimate figures of Blade, Tunneler, Pinhead and Torch to be sold in two-packs. I’m pretty sure the sound I made when I saw their announcement led my wife to think someone had died. I don’t think I’ve ever actually gasped with excitement before, but I did then. And after I took a minute to catch my breath, I started to wade through the reactions. Hundreds of positive reactions (rare for anything on Twitter) to the news. It was a joy to see people other than myself calling this a dream come true. But there was something else that really caught my eye: people saying they had no idea what Puppet Master was, but that they’d be buying them because these figures looked incredible. And that’s when it started to hit me; what this really meant. Because that’s exactly how it started for me. NECA’s not just making Puppet Master figures. They are, in doing so, potentially making a new generation of fans.
I don’t know how easily available the figures will be, though it looks promising especially with the fact that NECA changed their Twitter profile picture to Blade, but in some ways it doesn’t matter. For eight-year-old me, all it took was a page in a magazine and for some people in 2020, it looks like all it took was a tweet. But to start to get into why that’s all so important, I want to talk about what it was like to grow up as a fan of this franchise. I was sold on sight by the designs of the puppets, rented the first movie almost immediately and truly fell in love with the series. 1998, however, was a very different time, eons before Full Moon had its own streaming service. Full Moon had initially partnered with Paramount to distribute their films and by the time I discovered them, that deal had since ended. Obsessed as I was, I couldn’t buy the Puppet Master movies even if I somehow convinced my parents to let me. I had to make do with what I could find in the video store and so my weekends basically became a rotating schedule of renting Puppet Master I, II or III.
It was similar with the toys. They were successful—in fact, I still don’t think people realize how successful the original Puppet Master figures were—but were sold in comic book and specialty shops and, growing up in Maine, I had one comic shop within an hour. When I would find Puppet Master toys in stores, they were never the core puppets that I loved. My first figure was the evil Totem from Puppet Master 5 and my second was Mephisto, the puppet that appears for a single scene in Puppet Master II, looking like Blade at a Renaissance Faire. But I cherished them anyway. After years of obsessing, I did get my hands on all of them, and that was partially because of the continued success of Full Moon Toys, which led them to put more and more figures in more and more stores. That’s the key. They brought more exposure to the characters and the franchise than even the movies did at that point. I owned Retro Puppet Master toys years before I saw the movie. In fact, to this day, I think more people probably cast a glance to the Retro Puppet Master figures in Suncoast and FYE at the time than have still ever seen the film.
By 2000, I was finally seeing exactly what I wanted. The original batch of Puppet Master toys were re-released as repaint “Movie Editions” with new accessories and were sold in more stores than ever before. Blade, Tunneler, Pinhead, Torch, Jester and Six-Shooter were suddenly being sold in Spencer’s, even in Kaybee Toys. There was a 12” Blade doll and Spencer’s had an exclusive Blade mask that Halloween. It finally felt like the world was catching up to how successful I spent my childhood wishing this franchise could be. And at ten years old, I thought that was going to last forever. New toys were even announced that I couldn’t wait to get my hands on. By the next year, Full Moon collapsed once again, and it was all gone, just like that. I’ve remained a fan ever since, but it has never been the same. The budgets of the movies have only gotten lower and lower, and while it has remained impressive to see what a crew can do for pennies, shooting a new sequel in a week, especially for an FX-heavy franchise as this one is, the flame that fueled that passion has dimmed. My excitement for the series in recent years has been largely fueled by the incredibly impressive recent comic book series than the later films themselves. But for those not as feverishly obsessed as I had been, the flame had burnt out long ago.
Full Moon has certainly survived, selling replicas of varying quality and even tapping the bit of occasional brilliance—like the Plush Buddy Blade, for example—but those are for the most part things you need to buy directly from them. The movies themselves now premiere directly on Full Moon’s own streaming channel. Over time, the idea of seeing Puppet Master merchandise in stores became a ridiculous notion, despite the fact that it was once the norm. The idea that Puppet Master was ever a successful action figure series seems preposterous twenty years out, considering the fact that it’s a franchise that never even had a theatrical entry until its reboot, and even that one showed in select cities for one night only. That’s a testament to what Full Moon Toys accomplished back in the day, as well as to the potential of the characters. Puppet Master: The Action Figure Series was an instant success. The first two figures, Blade and Six-Shooter, sold out immediately, and the people buying them were certainly not all longtime fans. It made the cover of several toy magazines, it even won awards in various toy magazines. The success of Puppet Master as a toy line helped pave the way for a new age of horror collectibles that has only grown, and grown, and grown in popularity since. McFarlane’s Movie Maniacs came the following year and that line certainly set the stage for NECA and everything they’ve done for the horror collectible market over time.
When I stopped regularly collecting figures when I was younger, my last purchases were NECA’s Freddy vs. Jason set and NECA’s Hellraiser Cenobite Lair set. And it was NECA that got me back into it when their gorgeous renditions of some extremely specific, amazing things. I dreamed a lot about one day having horror toys in the days when I had to put a paper hockey mask on my Peter Parker just to have a Jason figure, and what I dreamed wasn’t nearly this good. It will never not blow my mind that I can walk into Target and have my pick of not one but two figures based on Friday the 13th Part V. Because of that, it still hasn’t even begun to sink in that Puppet Master is going to get the same treatment. What that means, as a fan, truly can’t be overstated. If I think it’s surreal and amazing that there’s a Final Chapter Jason that comes with a corkscrew, or that Part 2 Freddy comes packaged with the bizarre dogs with the baby faces, imagine how it feels to see that the Pinhead figure will include the wrench he used to wail on a Nazi in Puppet Master III. Or that Blade and Torch have moveable jaws, just like the characters have in the movies.
I was a kid raised on Puppet Master figures and had long accepted that that age would never come again, because as an adult I’d come to realize what a miracle it was that it ever even happened in the first place. Sure, Full Moon have started releasing their own little mini figures, which are delightful, but not nearly the same as this. To see figures this detailed, from a company so big it has its own rabid fan base, figures based on something I love so much, but that I also recognize is pretty niche, feels genuinely surreal. These four figures look beyond perfect. Torch, in particular, looks like he stepped directly out of the screen in Puppet Master II. It’s the kind of attention to detail NECA is known for, directed toward something I never thought possible for them to tackle.
Now I feel like a kid again when I start to think about the accessories they might be packaged with, although the pictures have revealed a bit. Blade, it appears, will come with an alternate bloody head and bloody knife, according to one of the pictures. Pinhead will clearly have alternate hands for wrenching and punching, Torch will have a flame accessory that looks almost identical to that of the original figure, which is clever even if it’s accidental. But what else? Will Tunneler have an extra head to make it look like he just ran through someone’s mouth and out the other side? Will Torch have an extra head with unlit eyes, or maybe a head that looks like after he’d just been hit with a fire extinguisher in Puppet Master II? It feels ridiculous to speculate about these things, but it feels even more ridiculous that these figures are happening in the first place.
Of course, my most prominent thought is what could happen if these figures are successful, as it looks like they will be, just based on the reaction to the announcement. Will there be more two-packs to round out the main group? Will NECA finally give me a closed-mouth Leech Woman figure, as the original figure depicted her right in the middle of leech-vomiting mode, much to my mom’s disgust? Can I finally get a Decapitron that is in-scale with the rest of the group? After all, NECA loves their extra heads and he is truly the guy for it. What about a Blade for their 8” clothed line, which would be incredible? Could the puppets get the Toony Terrors treatment? It’s absolutely surreal how possible some of these things sound. And even if these four upcoming figures are all we get, it’s so much more than I ever expected. Even that feels impossible.
I do think the franchise has taken huge strides forward with their recent Blade spinoff, allowing to shift the focus toward one puppet, given their budgetary realities, to move in new directions and tell new kinds of stories. But an announcement like this is exactly the shot of adrenaline that this franchise has needed for a very long time. It’s a kind of exposure that previously felt unattainable. There are now fourteen total Puppet Master movies, so the series has certainly never stopped, nor even slowed down by any stretch. And I can’t quite say that NECA’s reveal has left me remembering why I love it, because I’ve had a lot of practice putting that into words, but it has reminded me how I loved it when I was younger. How it felt to see those toys, whether in a magazine or on a store shelf, or in this case an announcement on Twitter of figures with a level of quality I had previously thought impossible. More than anything, though, I think of the people who saw that announcement, or are just now seeing it, and fell instantly in love with the designs, like I did. Who, I imagine, immediately opened a new tab to type “puppet master” into the search bar. And I’m so excited for everything they’re about to see.
Steven Spielberg has always been conversant in the cinematic language of the horror genre, despite relatively few credits in the genre. His contributions as a writer and producer on things like Poltergeist are legendary, and films like Duel and Jaws certainly wield the horror genre in remarkable, often chilling ways. He may not be a horror filmmaker, but he knows when he needs to scare us, and he has the tools to make that happen.
I didn’t go into Disclosure Day, Spielberg’s alien epic, expecting outright horror, and indeed the film leans much more into thrilling than frightening. This is not a horror film, but for a few minutes in the middle, much to my surprise, it became one.
Spielberg has filmed more than his fair share of scary scenes over the years, but with Disclosure Day, he directed a new contender for the scariest scene of his entire career.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Disclosure Day!
Josh O’Connor in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
Among the various alien secrets laced throughout Disclosure Day are a trio of palm-sized rods, the color of pencil graphite. These rods, originating from another planet, can be used for a number of things, but for the purposes of this scene, the most important is “diving,” gripping the rod in one bare hand and using its power to “dive” into the mind of another person.
The person holding the rod in this scene is Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), head of shadowy cybersecurity firm Wordex, who is hellbent on keeping human knowledge of extraterrestrials secret from the general public. Scanlon’s trying to find whistleblower Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), who’s got all of those alien secrets tucked in a backpack while he’s on the run, and while Daniel’s more experienced mind is protected from diving, his girlfriend Jane’s (Eve Hewson) is not. So, monitored by medical personnel at Wordex headquarters (diving is dangerous), Scanlon pushes his way into Jane’s mind to find the location of Daniel’s safe house.
A telepathic invasion is scary enough on its own, but Spielberg doesn’t stop there. When Scanlon dives into Eve’s mind, he appears to her to be sitting across the kitchen table, like he’s in the room. Her bright blue eyes turn Scanlon’s dark brown, and she loses much of her control over her own body, not to mention her mind. Moments before, Daniel finally shared with her the secrets in his backpack, so Jane is shocked, conflicted, deeply vulnerable when Scanlon slips inside her head. This is not just telepathy. This is possession.
Spielberg underscores this not just through the visual language of the scene, as Jane breaks out in a sweat and struggles to sit upright as Scanlon invades her mind, but through Jane’s background. As she revealed to Daniel earlier in the film, Jane is a former novitiate nun who left her convent when she began to question her calling. She still believes firmly in God and, more importantly, believes that perhaps proof of alien life should be kept secret from the public because, in her eyes, it would upset the entire balance of faith in the world. God is a defining factor for humankind, Jane argues, and showing humanity proof of creatures from the stars would undercut that in dangerous ways.
This context, combined with the crucifix necklace Jane’s holding in her hand at the time of the dive, makes this scene the closest thing Spielberg will ever shoot to something out of The Exorcist. It’s not just a battle of wills, but a battle of faith. As an amoral technocrat worms his way into her memories, her beliefs, her faith, Jane turns the crucifix into a weapon, squeezing it until her hand bleeds when she discovers that a pain response can momentarily push Scanlon out of her head.
Of course, when you put a crucifix and a bloody hand together, it conjures images of stigmata. Screenwriter David Koepp pushes the allusion further by having Scanlon quote Christ on the cross to Jane by way of convincing her that she must be the one to stop Daniel by any means necessary.
It’s easy to see why this is scary, right?
On a very basic level, you have a powerful, wealthy man subduing and assaulting an innocent young woman, which is frightening enough. Then, the layers of the scene kick in. Scanlon doesn’t just assault Jane, but possesses her, seizes her memories, her knowledge, and finally her own free will, all while Jane literally clings to her faith in an effort to fight back. Disclosure Day is, among other things, a story about who has a right to the truth, and Scanlon believes that he should be the arbiter of that truth. Not just the truth as he sees it, but the truth as Jane sees it as well. If they don’t see eye to eye, he’ll make her.
But the possession, as it turns out, cuts both ways. Using the rod to dive is, for a normal human being, an intensely strenuous process. Scanlon admits that previous attempts almost killed him, and for some members of his time, so much as touching the rod results in a near-death experience. Even accessing an unprepared mind like Jane’s takes a lot of Scanlon, and when she kicks him out by squeezing the crucifix – again, so much meaning embedded in the details here – his team holds him back and tries to offer medical intervention. But Scanlon persists, pushing them away, and keeps diving back in.
This means that Jane can’t escape him because he just won’t stop pushing back through her defenses, but it also means that each time Scanlon enters her mind, and thus the safe house, he looks more monstrous. By the end, through a combination of lighting and makeup, Firth barely looks human, conjuring up images of the possessed Father Karras at the end of The Exorcist.
Colin Firth (center, standing) in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
On a pure, visceral craft level, all of this is quite frightening, but the real trick to making this scene into Spielberg’s most terrifying lies in the more existential horror surrounding all of this. Disclosure Day is a film about the battle for the truth over extraterrestrials, but it’s also about a fight against an impossibly powerful surveillance state, the devaluing of human and alien lives in favor of some nebulous collection of assets, and the value of the individual in a world that increasingly lumps people into demographic boxes and writes them off.
In this scene, the surveillance state becomes supernatural, a human life is worth less than a piece of information, and an extragovernmental technocrat would rather sacrifice his own humanity than see reason. In 2026, few things could be more terrifying than that. Spielberg knows this and wields it mightily, proving once again that, while he’s not a strictly horror filmmaker, he can direct horror with the best of them.
Disclosure Day is in theaters now.
Eve Hewson (second from left) in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
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