Doktor Death, the second spin-off in Full Moon’s Puppet Master series, aims low and hits high with its heightened addition to the small-scale horror franchise.

The killer doll genre has been around for decades, but it’s currently in the middle of a Renaissance and there’s never been a better time for the Puppet Master franchise to indulge in wild spin-off experiments. It’s been three years since the release of the last Puppet Master spin-off, Blade: The Iron Cross, and in that time there’s now two seasons of an exceptional Chucky TV series and movies like M3GAN that have pushed horror’s killer doll subgenre to exciting and challenging new places. In some respects these evolutions make something like Puppet Master: Doktor Death feel especially lackluster and irrelevant. That being said, no one who sees Doktor Death is expecting an Annabelle or M3GAN level spectacle.

Full Moon Features has quietly been doing their thing for nearly 35 years and Puppet Master: Doktor Death doesn’t stray from that formula. This is far from high art, and it knows it, but Doktor Death is still one of the more entertaining entries to come along in this flailing franchise since Sonny Laguna, Tommy Wiklund, and S. Craig Zahler’s aggressive reboot, Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, from 2018. Doktor Death is an improvement from Blade: The Iron Cross and a step in the right direction that celebrates the creative carnage of these fun films.

I am an unabashed Puppet Master fan and apologist, but also one who’s well aware that this franchise has been a broken collection of pieces for many years now. Full Moon’s announcement of Puppet Master’s continuation through character-driven spin-offs is actually a decent approach for the films, but Blade: The Iron Cross didn’t start things off on a very promising note. Rather than return to the director of The Iron Cross, John Lechago, Doktor Death recruits Dave Parker (“Sweet Tooth” from Tales of Halloween, The Hills Run Red, It Watches). Parker actually has a history with the Puppet Master franchise and reverence towards these characters. He helped write the drafts for 1994’s scrapped Puppet Wars trilogy from 1994 (which also planned to make prominent use of Doktor Death), set after the events of Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge. 

Truth be told, Doktor Death barely qualifies as a “movie” since it clocks in at 59 minutes–with credits–so there’s under 55 minutes of actual content. This includes an inexplicable dream recap that occurs around the half-way mark that covers the first-half of the film, apparently for anyone who fell asleep or randomly decided to tune in at the middle. That being said, at 59 minutes, Doktor Death still manages to say and do more than its 70-minute spin-off predecessor, Blade: The Iron Cross, which is definitely a compliment to Doktor Death’s efficient final act.

It should come as no surprise that Puppet Master: Doktor Death isn’t Tenet when it comes to its plot. The Doktor Death puppet is basically unleashed at the Shady Oaks Senior Living retirement home, where this possessed doll is able to annihilate a number of octogenarians as a way to give his tortured spirit some karmic closure. Doktor Death knows that its audience is watching this to see gratuitous puppet murders and the movie doesn’t bend over backwards to reach the point where Doktor Death is in full murder mode.

Many of the murders in the Puppet Master series can blend together at a certain point as low-angle POV slasher slots run amok. Doktor Death is guilty of indulging in these tropes, but it still slices up some creative kills that would horrify the American Board of Medical Specialties. There’s a fun sequence that’s built around a body bag in a morgue that’s well-composed and works much better than it should. The same is true for the movie’s perpetual use of extreme shadows that carry out Doktor Death’s destruction. Other murders succeed in their sheer brutality, like the clairvoyant painter (don’t ask) who gets a handful of paintbrushes jammed down her throat in a grisly display that would make Picasso flinch.

Puppet Master has pushed itself into a corner where its creatures’ kills have more of a personality than they do. Doktor Death doesn’t take its murderous minion for granted and leans into the medical knowledge that this puppet possesses. The slicing of Achilles tendons are par for the course in Puppet Master, but Doktor Death has several setpieces that take advantage of his twisted brilliance. This leads to one of the most original ideas in the franchise since Puppet Master II where Doktor Death commandeers his victims’ bodies and gets them to attack like zombies through the manhandling of their tendons. It’s an attempt to do something with this character instead of purely coasting off of the doll’s creepy look. By the end of the movie, Doktor Death accrues an impressive body count, especially in the concentrated span of the film’s final act.

I was ready to permanently close the lid on Andre Toulon’s box of killer puppets after Blade: The Iron Cross and Puppet Master’s “Axis Trilogy,” but Puppet Master: Doktor Death is proof that the strings on these puppets may be longer than it initially seemed. Doktor Death is hardly a full-on franchise rejuvenation, but it at least instills some confidence in any future endeavors, which otherwise wasn’t present before. The film even goes the extra mile to actually connect with the franchise’s larger lore in a way that’s satisfying, makes sense, and will mean something to the series’ hardcore fans. Puppet Master would be wise to follow in Doktor Death’s tiny footsteps and even let Dave Parker take a crack at another film; perhaps one that focuses on Six-Shooter, Leech Woman, or any of the more atypical killer puppets.

‘Puppet Master: Doktor Death’ is currently streaming via Full Moon Features’ Tubi channel.