Demonic Toys: Personal Demons

I really do want to respect Charles Band. Back in the day he put his name on a number of decent B-movies and was one of the early innovators in the home video market, producing the type of movies I enjoyed watching during that period. It was certainly a long time ago and he has managed to put out a lot of real trash in the years that followed that I simply can't stand, the whole output using the "small stuff can be scary" genre being at the top of the list. I get nothing from these types of films except a sinking feeling in my stomach as I imagine what is going on n the heads of people who find this junk entertaining. The "toys" aren't scary and the gore and kill scenes are lame. No real nudity to pick things up and the plot, of course, is completely stupid. What really gets under my skin are the silly comments and attempts at humor the "toys" make that are not only inappropriate for a horror flick but inappropriate for a toy that was made in the 1400's or whatever. Why do filmmakers feel they need to do this? Do people like it? I guess, because they keep making "horror" movies with that sort of dumb dialogue in them, but I think it sucks. It was sort of funny when Freddy Kruger first did it and it quickly got old for me and that was decades ago. This is boring, lack-luster cinema at its worst, but it won't even put you to sleep--it just raises your blood pressure.

Okay, I'm a fan of Charles Band and his company Full Moon, my favorite is Puppet Master and Demonic Toys so I was more than happy to check this one out. So me and my younger brothers which are also fans of the original decided to check this out last night, but sadly we were disappointed.

This movie was awful but not in a good way. The original Demonic toys was a low budget cheesy movie but it delivered a good amount of fun and really kept you entertained despite the bad acting n lack of plot. This movie on the other hand it didn't quite deliver the fun, all this movie seem to deliver to me, is a good amount of boredom. I literally found myself doing something else than watching the movie. But i really think that's the fault of the pacing of the movie because it's really slow, we really seem to spend more time with the Human characters of the movie, that's never really a bad thing but they don't add anything to the movie except wonder around a castle for what seems like forever. So when finally get to the demonic toys they aren't anything special because compared to the original they really cheap and the voice of Baby Oopsite Daisy gets annoying after a while. So as a Demonic toys fan like I stated above it was a big disappointment I'm actually really ashamed of myself for buying the DVD

I'm a big Full Moon fan! I loved just about everything Band put out in the 90's ..especially Demonic Toys. Don't get me wrong I hold a very special place in my heart for the Puppet Master series, but I've always felt that Demonic Toys just had that edgy, risky, guilty pleasure feel to it. This particular installment to the series, which I could not wait to see, simply enough falls short of its predecessor in a number of ways...I mean I could pick at a movie's flaws all day, but being a hard core fan of the original I'll try to be brief...

There are some people out there that say the story line was a little weak, but I'm not going to judge a low budget horror film sequel too hard...I mean it's called "Demonic Toys 2" ..I can only hope that you rent this movie knowing that it's not going to be up for any awards. A bigger problem I had with the movie was that it didn't really try to be unique away from the original...they only play the theme song from the original about every second of the movie and it just gets ruined and annoying. The acting in the movie is OK...the characters themselves leave a little more to be desired. There is a lot of computer generated blood which really detracts from the movie.....the first movie had blood, guts, and eye balls out the yin yang....just get some corn syrup and goop it up 90's style. My biggest complaint about this movie is the puppets. The baby doll and jack attack are all well and good, but what about Mr. Static and Grizzly??? Fans would have gone even more crazy about this movie if they were included. No...instead we're given some new old toy called Divoletto...and in my opinion he really does nothing in this movie.

I did find it to be entertaining, but that might be me being bias because I love the demonic toys. This could have been a great addition to the franchise, but it just tried to sell off of the success and popularity of the original. What a shame...all it needed was a few more puppets ...a couple gallons of blood ...and a little more care.

The evil toys totally make this movie, there is something about them I really really like. If you don't like horror movies, b-movies and all that, then why you watching this movie? Of course you wont like it. However, this was a decently made low-budget movie.

Other makers of low budget horror should really take note, this is how its done. A small cast, with actual characters, gore, one setting (the Italian castle).

The acting wasn't that great, but what do you expect? This was a fun movie, and the plot with Devotello or whatever it was called, was cool. That and I just loved that killer baby!

I don't understand why Full Moon Entertainment and Charles Brand waited so long to bring out the sequels. I also cannot comprehend that there have been eighteen years between the first story and this one and still the film is atrocious. Eighteen years to write a script, raise a budget, develop a cast, and hire a director. Though the finished project looks like it was cobbled together in a couple of weeks.

The story concept is a worthy effort and would have made a great story had it been handled better. Though the writer, William Butler, interjects plenty of characters, no matter how stereotypical, he fails to give them personalities the audience can relate to. Since he even directs this travesty he had ample chance to make the individuals and their persona's visually interesting at least... and fails.

But, it's not just with the human cast he fails. In the original flick, there was more than a spattering of dark humour. This was nicely carried by the Baby Oopsie Daisy - who is now called Baby Whoopsie. There's about as much dark humour in this film as there are atmosphere and characterisations... oh, that's right, there's none of them either.

There was one bright light in this darkness and that was the great Leslie Jordan as Butterfield. Granted he usually plays the same character in most of his appearances and does here. However, if this is a great character and adds to the film and story then I can live with it. In this case, I thank him for lifting this film out of the muck and mire it was wallowing in, even if it was for his scenes only.

So if you're a Leslie Jordan fan then... STAY AWAY from this film. Even his presence doesn't make this worth watching. Not even once. Go check out my Absolute Horror list and pick a better film to watch, there are plenty.