Thursday, January 12, 2012

Moon Over Miami: Demonic Toys

Can an older Full Moon film be better than their recent fare?  To determine that, let's take a look at Demonic Toys.  This movie was so influential that it got a sequel...17 years later.  Granted, the characters appear in Dollman vs. Demonic Toys and Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys.  However, those films are hardly considered canon, the later officially so.  This is coming from a studio that randomly brings characters back from other films- i.e. the scientist from Hideous showing up in Demonic Toys 2- and merging series' in weird ways- connecting Head of the Family and Blood Dolls.  Putting that aside, can this movie turn out to be good?  Well, the plot is a bit confusing, as it involves a demon baby, a bear doll and a guy who sells fried chicken.  What else can I say?  Well, I'll think of something, so why don't you read on...
The film begins with an engaged couple getting ready to do an undercover gun bust.  Are you allowed to work together?  Furthermore, does your girlfriend telling you that she's pregnant signal your imminent death?  Maybe...
This is a fat guy.  He does fat guy thinks like sit around, watch Puppet Master and eat fried chicken at midnight.  Now you see why Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys is not canon, huh?
Wounded, one half of the criminal crawls right into this lit area to get killed by the Toys.  Fun fact: that's Richard Lynch's kid, who was also in Trancers II.
The villain of this movie is a Demon who likes to take the form of a child with a dubbed voice.  They really think that this is scary...
The fat guy gets shot by a baby doll and bitten to death by an evil teddy bear.  I should mention that this film is meant to be scary and not a comedy.
Via flashback, we learn that the Demon was born in 1926, but died.  Naturally, the Satanic Doctors (my future band name) dump the body on some trick-or-treaters, who dump the body in a lot.  Fun Fact: this tradition was invented in the 1950s!  Hi, plot-hole.
With things going his way, the Demon/Kid prepares a ceremony to get himself born in place of the cop's fetus.  Quick question: what's so different about this time that it will work?
After 80-plus minutes of build-up, the movie comes down to a fight between two ten-year olds.  Can you say disappointing?  Oh and the kid is our heroine's unborn child.  The End.
This is nothing to toy around with!  This movie is certainly full of good ideas, but I'm not so keen on how they were executed.  The toys are neat in theory, for example.  They look a lot like real toys, only with a more sinister twist.  Jack Attack- the Jack in a Box- has some neat make-up work done to it and its only real blemish is that it's pretty much the same make-up used for Killjoy.  However, I don't really see a lot of threat from these guys.  They even resort to having the baby doll use a gun to kill someone.  Hell, in their first real kill, it takes them a long, damn time to kill Lynch's son!  Furthermore, how does the robot doll fire real lasers?  Is it a magical thing?  If so, what kind of demon power makes the advanced mechanics needed to create light, focus it and fire it as a projectile.  It's silly- that's all I'm saying!  The scariest things in the movie are these weird little girls who wear gas masks and ride tricycles around.  Unfortunately, they don't do anything more than ride around and point, eventually just vanishing completely.  I did like what they did with the bear near The End, but it was Edited so heavily to cover the suit's flaws that it kind of ruins it.  Ultimately, this is a decent film with decent ideas that could have used some better execution and more money behind it.  Do you think that the sequel will fix these problems, random screenshot from the movie?
Next up, the actual sequel to Demonic Toys.  A random character from another film joins for this movie and the budget goes to shit.  Stay tuned...

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