Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys

In California, the great-nephew of Andre Toulon and owner of the Toulon Doll Hospital Robert Toulon (Corey Feldman) has found with his daughter Alexandra (Danielle Keaton) an ancient formula that brings the puppets back to life with his blood. However, the devilish owner of the Share Toys, Erica Sharpe (Vanessa Angel), who has made a deal with the demon named Bael, has a hidden camera in Toulon's place and discovers his secret. She has the intention of using his formula to reanimate the Christmas Palls, a successful toy manufactured by her factory, to cause the greatest slaughter of innocents on the Christmas morning. But Robert, together with his daughter, Sergeant Jessica Russell (Silvia Suvadova) and the guardian's puppets Jester, Pinhead, Blades and Six Shooter fight against Erica, Bael and her evil toys to save the mankind.

"Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys" is cheesy and lame, with silly screenplay and poor dialogs associated to bad acting. Corey Feldman is not funny and his character is actually annoying. Vanessa Angel is histrionic with her exaggerated performance. Danielle Keaton is sweet and Silvia Suvadova is reasonable. The result is a forgettable B-movie that is neither a comedy nor a horror movie. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Brinquedos Diabólicos" ("Diabolic Toys")

For starters let me say this: the acting was (very) bad, the special effects laughable, and the story made me want to hurt the writers.

But you know what? I enjoyed it anyway!

Compared to "CURSE OF THE PM", "RETRO PM" and "PM: THE LEGACY" this was a step up...okay, a half a step, but still. Sure the Puppet's movements were really herky-jerky, but it's nice to see someone actually cared to make them MOVE, instead of looking like someone was playing with their PM action figures and over-relying on stock footage. And Baby Oopsie movements were pretty good actually. Ditto that freaky jack in the box. (The less said about that useless Teddy Bear, the better).

The acting is undeniably bad, but bad in a "so-bad-it's-funny" way, which is a little better than the boredom I felt watching the three films mentioned above. Shot, Coery Feldman wasn't even their first choice but their original lead man backed out over a budgeting dispute, which is really, really unfair considering the money the Sci-Fi Channel people spend on all those Sci-Fi original mini-series and Friday night shows and marketing the heck out of them.

Making the Puppets into cyborgs was an annoying move, but a somewhat necessary one. Let's face it, short things killing people was scary back in the eighties and early nineties, but a doll/puppet with a knife doesn't remotely scare anyone anymore (look at what's happened to the CHILD'S PLAY series). In fact, I almost like the Puppet's *ahem* upgrades. Blade gets a bigger knife with teeth on edge, a better looking hook and is still a little bad ass, Pinhead's new hands look bad but make him a lot stronger, and giving Six-Shooter lasers ain't a bad idea (where in the world could he find a steady supply of tiny bullets?) Jester...his new look and abilities aren't good at all, but then again all he ever had going for him was his rotating head. Much less forgivable is the decision to give the Toys *ahem* "super powers". The jack in the box's laugh now doubles as a sonar scream and Baby Oopsie has the ability to leap long distances by...farting?! What were they thinking is anyone's guess.

The plot these tiny terrors are in...it's real bad isn't it? In fact, the whole "kill millions of kids on a holiday" thing was done before--and better--in HALLOWEN 3. And once again the writers gladly overlook and ignore continuity to make a new story and some new plot points, never mind long time fans and how they feel (Wait, you mean there was another Toulon centuries ago that sold his soul to a demon, then hid it in an oak tree and that same tree is what Andre used to make those puppets from "RETRO PM"?...HUH?!?!).

Let's be honest, they haven't made a good (or even decent) PUPPET MASTER movie since part 5, and probably never will. But at least here they gave it a little effort.

Before we get into what PUPPET MASTER VS. DEMONIC TOYS represents, lets get into the back history of this film. Back when Charles Band and his Full Moon empire were still financed by Paramount Pictures, he was constantly turning out high quality, low budget features that looked like they were more expensive than they actually were (note that I didn't say that they were, you know, good). Anyway, times changed, people changed, and Band was discharged from Camp Paramount. Everything was in his hands now, and therefore, budgets dropped considerably; franchises that fans were use to seeing excellent SFX (we still miss you, David Allen) and great camera work were now only privy to even LOWER budgeted installments (a great example that ties into this film: Anyone remember the fan backlash at CURSE OF THE PUPPET MASTER?). Band even enlisted J.R. Bookwalter's Tempe Entertainment to make some films for him, and ironically, those films were better than anything Band produced or directed since the Paramount breakup.

Enter 2004. The Full Moon/Shadow Entertainment empire that Charles Band once had has pretty much crumbled beneath its own weight. In whatever circumstance occurred, the Sci-Fi Channel ended up with PUPPET MASTER VS. DEMONIC TOYS (oh yeah, note to someone who mentioned if Sci-Fi owned the old Full Moon movies or something that they would have had an all day marathon: Anything Full Moon that is pre-1996 for the most part is owned by Paramount, and almost all of the films from 1996 to 2003 are either owned by other companies that helped financially or were purchased were Kushner-Locke got bought by Artisan, so in essence, Sci-Fi couldn't have a marathon without buying TV rights for those films), and produced what no one thought imaginable: Charles Band's key franchise of the 1990s that put Full Moon on the map in the hand's of another company without their involvement whatsoever, and a sequel actually being released.

Directed and written by former Full Moon alumni Ted Nicolau and C. Courtney Joyner respectively, PMvDT takes a different approach with the PUPPET MASTER concept, that hasn't been seen in a while: Takes home in the low budgetness of the series, know that it is cheesy.

And when it comes to cheese, no one is better known than Corey Feldman, who plays as Robert Toulon with an "accented" deep voice, who I believe helps the film do what it is suppose to do, and that is just take the ball and run with it. Granted, his acting is nothing impressive (its a PUPPET MASTER movie, no Full Moon or not, its not going to actually be high quality entertainment), but his presence is what makes it so over the top.

The puppet and toy work is as good as it can be, given budget restrictions, and a surprising twist to the puppets (well, not surprising, if anyone remembers the old Full Moon Toys line). Although they are essentially completely new puppets (they are remodeled off of the original David Allen designs of the 90s) from the get-go, it was still fun to see some familiar faces running around.

And also, it works as something different for Christmas flare: The low-brow PG-13 (oh I'm sorry, TV-14) humor and violence actually help it, as it doesn't make it go too over the top, but actually fits right at home, and works well despite some entries in previous series being extremely hard R's.

Give it a shot, if your not into low budget, wrecks of films (and in all seriousness, I mean that in a good way), you're not going to have a good time, but if your a fan, look at this as a new beginning, like when New Line took Jason and made JASON GOES TO HELL and JASON X (well, don't think of those specific films, think of the comparison). But do not go into it expecting PUPPET MASTER 1 through 5 quality, because believe me, that will NEVER happen again.

I consider myself a huge Puppet Master fan and completest. I own the OOP DVD box set most all of the action figures and even have the original movie poster to Puppet Master III. I'm a Puppet Master nut. I even find the good in the worst sequels. But I'm not sure even I would want this in my Puppet Master collection.

Some would scoff, but this is a slap in the face of the Puppet Master series. I was never a big big fan of the Demonic Toys movies, but I always saw the potential for a good movie being made about a battle between the puppets and toys.

If you went to the official Full Moon website years ago, you would have seen a terrific glorious image of the puppets and toys going head to head. That image was better than the whole of this 'movie'. It just doesn't even feel like one of the Puppet Master movies... As I said before, I never really loved Demonic Toys, but it was a masterpiece compared to this.

It's all just too silly. All the attempted humor misses. And the biggest let down is that there is hardly any kind of fight between the puppets and the toys! I don't think it lasted much more than a minute or so and that was at the very end of the film! Obviously whoever directed this didn't see a Puppet Master movie in his life and didn't care to.

I think I can say the Puppet Master series is unfortunately officially dead.

At least I have my old precious Full Moon DVD's to cherish. Cherish what it all USED to be.

The Puppet Master 1: terrifying Sequels: terrifying...that these get by as horror movies

Demonic Toys: sucked Demonic Toys Vs. Dollman: Not worthy to acknowledge

THE PUPPET MASTER VS. DEMONIC TOYS: Good; cheesy fun!

These film is the second best of the Puppet Master series and the first best of the Demonic Toys series! The gore was cool, the relationship between Robert and the puppets was fun and nice. All in all, it's not a bad film at all. Formualic: yes. Cheesy: yes. Fun: yes!

3 1/2 out 5