Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys

OK, so it may not be the best horror film ever made...actually it is one of the worst purely for the concept of it, but hey its only a film! Basically its Christmas Eve...ish, and the demonic toy company are released yeah you guessed it demonic toys set to destroy everything on Christmas day, BUT! Andre Touloun's great nephew Robert Touloun is there to save the day! Accompianed with our old Puppet Master favourites, him, his daughter and a copper attempt to stop the demonic toys and there seemingly demented master. Yes it is completely predictable and the fight scenes are seriously funny, but Corey Feldmnan makes this film watchable as the bumbling hero with some risqué jokes with the copper and just being a generally lovable character :) don't watch if expecting a plot twisting, mind numbing horror film its just a bit of enjoyable carnage

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")

But then perhaps those moments are only cause I haven't seen a puppet master movie in a few years? And by that I mean an original movie not "best of" clips put together and sold under the guise of a movie (I'm looking at you Legacy). This movie had some okay ideas, but they were all hampered by phoney acting. I mean the puppet master movies and the demonic toys were never known for Oscar winning performances, but these characters seemed to lean towards caricatures of what they were suppose to act like (crazy scientist, evil mistress). And all of the puppets and toys seemed to lack detail and all were animated poorly. Of course being a T.V. movie based off direct to video flicks means that they were probably on a shoe string budget, but still why does jack-in-the-box have to look exactly like...well like a jack in the box. I thought they were from a movie called DEMONIC TOYS? And this could be me, but did Blade seem kinda out of character? My image of Blade has never included him standing on one foot while he spends around like a friggin ballerina to kill something. Anywho, this could have been a lot better, but I guess if we ever want to see the movies put on DVD Separately without having to pay $200 bucks for the whole set on ebay, we should try to support Sci-fi's offering and perhaps maybe, just maybe they might listen to our criticism for future installments.

This should have been a lot better than it was. You have two of the best franchises and Corey Feldman, but the story is lackluster and at times silly. I am probably taking it far too seriously as it's only to be intended as silly gory fun, but the original Puppet Master movie was excellent and so were the first two Demonic Toys, plus Ted Nicolaou directing, since he was the one who directed Subspecies, I thought he could have done a better job. Although he claimed to have not been accustomed to working with puppets and apparently he wasn't happy with the film. Silvia Suvadova as Sergeant Jessica Russell was fun and could actually act. Vanessa Angel as Erica Sharpe is clearly having fun as the villain, and Corey Feldman as Robert Toulon should have been great, but I found his husky voice (I think done to make him appear older,) downright annoying. It's clear that Charles Band didn't have a direct hand in this movie. It's true his company Full Moon produced a lot of crap, but this movie was from two of his best franchises and a very talented director, it's just a shame because it could have been so much better.

There was some real potential there.

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.