I've only seen a few episodes of South Park but this movie reminded me so much of that show that I have to believe that the SP creators were inspired by this one. First off, here you have life size puppets living in a real world whereas in South Park you have cardboard cutouts living in an animated world. The movements of the characters in both worlds are very similar. The dialogue is very South Parkish - the jester character is very similar to one or more characters in the TV show. Finally, you have lots of violence and blood in this movie. The scene where holes are poked in the puppet and streams of blood pour out is very South Parkish. This movie is also similar to Svankmajer's later work Faust.