Giocattoli infernali

"Demonic Toys" is another wonderful, low-budget offering of horror hokum from Charles Band's Full Moon studio.

A combination of slightly over-the-top performances (Bentley Mitchum sounds like Bill Paxton's Hudson from "Aliens" when under pressure), some interesting special effects and a selection of simply wonderful "demonic toys" (the teddy bear and baby doll are inspired) result in 90 minutes of entertaining viewing. There's more of the red stuff than in most Full Moon features - gore-hounds won't be knocked out by the amount of blood and guts but there are enough scenes of surreal violence to prevent boredom setting in.

Fans of cheesy horror should enjoy this one. Its heart is in the right place and the film looks great - very dark and atmospheric.

The effective score by the always reliable Richard Band is the icing on the cake.

"Demonic Toys" is one of the funniest bad movies ever made.The dialogue is hilariously awful and the script is extremely stupid.However I really enjoyed this one simply because I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.Some rather cheesy gore effects are about the only one thing that save this movie from being a total disaster.The acting is laughably bad,the characters are very annoying,but the evil toys look amazing.If you are a big b-movie fan,then you might enjoy this.Everyone else is advised to stay away.

The front cover of my DVD for Demonic Toys (Film 2000 Shock Horror Collection) states that 'special effects wizard David Allen brings Toulon's killer puppets magically to life'. In reality, Allen's FX contribution is fairly negligible and Toulon (from the Puppetmaster series) has jack all to do with this particular movie.

Similarly misleading is the one (mis)quote on the sleeve from roberthood.net (no, me neither), which describes Demonic Toys as boasting 'breast-focused nudity', which it doesn't really: there's a two second shot of a topless woman—hardly what you would call Russ Meyer/Andy Sidaris territory.

Despite the distributor clearly feeling the need to deceive people into buying the film, Demonic Toys isn't all that awful; in fact, as trashy low-budget B-movie horrors go, this one is actually pretty entertaining, with a reasonable amount of invention (the script written by David S. Goyer of Batman Begins and Dark City fame), some marvellously shonky puppet-style monsters, and a fair amount of gratuitous gore (including plucked eyeballs and a decapitation).

It's all incredibly silly, of course, with people trapped in a toy warehouse, terrorised by a demonic jack-in-the-box, a deadly doll called Oopsie Daisy, and a giant killer teddy bear (controlled by an evil spirit who wants to be reborn as a human), but not so bad that it didn't deserve a respectable DVD release with a more representative sleeve.

5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

As a fan of Full Moon pictures, this movie could have been a little better. Although it is a fun movie to watch. The characters are so cheesy this movie can't possibly be dissapointing. The toys look ridiculous but are funny none the less. I like the line uttered my Oopsie dasiy baby when kicked in the face. "Bummer!" If you like cheesy movies, then get this movie, cuz it can't get any more cheesier.

"Demonic Toys" is a curious mixture of gore and cheesiness - in about equal measures. In fact, this film epitomizes cheesiness: stupid plot, uneven effects, mostly terrible acting (save for leading lady Tracy Scoggins, who is too awesome-looking for her acting to matter anyway), and dialogue laced with lame puns ("You messed up my make-up"!). But the gore is pretty extreme and over-the-top (the dolls rip off huge chunks of flesh from the faces of their victims). It's a bad film, but tolerable IF you're in the right mood.....(*1/2)