Confessions of a Puppet Master by Charles Band

Last night, I finished Charles Band's Confessions of a Puppet Master, an autobiography of the director best known for Puppet Masters and Trancers. He is also the founder of Empire Pictures in the 80s, and Full Moon Features.

I'm not sure what drew me to this book, since I've pretty much given up on biographies. More often than not, I come away hating the subject and their larger than life tales (See: Matthew McConaughey's Green Lights and Elivira's Yours Cruely, Elvira). Luckily, Charles Band's story feels grounded and more like a series of blog posts, rather than one long narrative to talk about how great/smart/attractive he is. Not unlike his movies, this feels a little rough around the edges, but you can feel some authenticity within the story. He's led an interesting life, and fans of independent cinema should definitely give this a read. You aren't going to find any real filmmaking tips, but it's a fun story about a guy who was there pre-video store, then lost it all, got it all back when the video stores exploded, then lost it all when they died off.

(Fun fact, did you know Charles was the guy who licensed Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween for the Atari 2600?)

My only real complaint was the last fifteen years was rather rushed, and I feel like so much more could have been said. Luckily, he has a new book coming out soon that will hopefully fill in some of the gaps.