Giocattoli infernali

I am a big fan of tacky sounding horror films and thus when I saw this on DVD on the cheap I thought I had to buy it, so I did.

The plot is simple two cops are trying to catch two criminals outside of a toy warehouse. The plan doesn't go as they expected and one of the cops is killed, the two criminals get inside the warehouse although one is injured. The policewoman (Scoggins) follows them in. She catches one but the other manages to get away from her but he stumbles across a Satanic symbol which he manages to 'awaken'. Then you get the kid (Cerny) and a bunch of possessed toys. Oh and a security guard, a delivery boy and a teen runaway in a factory of evil toys.

Strangely for this type of film the acting isn't all that bad I thought Scoggins was pretty good as Judith Gray. The kid of course being a demon disguised as a weirdly bright-eyed boy isn't scaring anyone any time soon. The effects are a little out-dated as the film is over 10 years old now. The film in all is actually quite entertaining you have a bad-ass foul mouthed doll called Baby oopsie-daisy, the weirdest looking bad guy and the phrase 'do the nasty' uttered several times by said weird looking bad guy.

If you want a top-quality award-deserving horror film of course, you could guess by the title, this isn't for you but if you just want a little entertainment and probably a good few laughs then this is for you.

My personal rating 8/10.

Full Moon entertainment was one of the main sources of new horror films during the early 90s. With low budgets and very creative minds, they put out some of the best horror movies of that decade, always walking in the fine line between horror & tongue-in-cheek comedy. Among those movies was "Demonic Toys", a very funny movie dealing with a demon possessing a group of toys.

Judith Gray (Tracy Scoggins) is a cop who, after a failed undercover operation where she lost her partner (& lover), gets trapped inside a warehouse while chasing for the criminals she was supposed to catch. One of the criminals gets hurt and his blood awakes an ancient demon. In the form of a kid (Daniel Cerny), the Demon will use his powers to transform the toys into killing machines, in order to posses & become Judith's unborn child. To survive, Judith will have to join forces with the people who by coincidence or fate, was in the warehouse at the same moment.

"Demonic Toys" is not a serious horror film, it is packed with a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor that makes a very entertaining movie. The plot is an interesting one, and while it could had worked as a serious film, it is quite good as this silly comedy. This is one of those movies where all the negative parts just increase the camp factor and become watchable.

The acting is good for a movie of this characteristics. Tracy Scoggins may not be a good actress, but she is a beautiful lady and gets the support of the underrated Bentley Mitchum, as a young delivery boy in a role reminiscent of Bruce Campbell's Ash of the "Evil Dead" series. Also, Daniel Cerny gives a remarkably good performance as the incarnation of the demon. He is definitely one of the most underrated child actors ever. The rest of the cast has good moments, but nothing really special.

The SFX are average for the most part of the film, but it also has well-done gore and specially a brilliant stop-motion animation in the end. While the dialogs are at times corny, the silliness makes the film better, as the toys are funny instead of scary. The "baby" is very good as comic relief and I would compare it to the humor of the recent sequels of "Child's Play".

Obviously, the film has big flaws, and most are caused by the low-budget. The lack of diverse locations make the film look always the same, and some of the SFX look really cheap. However, most of the times this just adds to the cheesy fun the film delivers.

This is definitely not a very good movie, but it is good material for a video night with friends. 6/10

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.

A botched bust on a pair of arms dealers inadvertantly leads to the raising of a sixty-six-year-old demon with the power to bring toys to life as his personal minions. The demon is looking for a body to inhabit so he can increase his powers, and it just so happens that one of the police officers is pregnant with the ideal host. As the murderous toys close in on their victims, the officer must not only fight for her life, but for the soul of her unborn child. "demonic toys" is a very entertaining horror gem! The special effects and toys look quite creepy (I love oppsie daisies and the jack-in-the-box) and it has a good sense of (unintentional, most of the time)humor. Highest recommendations!

"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.