The Toy Box

The Toy Box (1971)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Donna (Ann Myers) and Ralph (Sean Kenney) attend another one of Uncle's parties where he has people perform weird sex acts in exchange for getting to pick out a prize from "the toy box." At this party however it's quite different because Uncle is dead and the sex acts are going on around his body. Soon party members start to turn up dead.

THE TOY BOX was originally released by Harry Novak and it eventually founds itself on DVD thanks to those great folks at Something Weird Video. I'm not going to sit here and call this a must-see or a masterpiece but if you're a fan of the bizarre then you'll certainly want to check it out. The film has an ultra low-budget but at the same time there's no question that it has a weird atmosphere as well as an early mix of sex, nudity, drugs and various horror elements.

As far as the sexploitation goes, there's plenty of naked people messing around here as well as some really beautiful women. There's a mass orgy going on so you've got a lot of people running around naked and there are some nicely erotic moments throughout. One of the highlights happens early on when the virgin Donna pleases herself with a dildo. As far as the horror elements go, they're not the greatest in the world but we've got that low-budget atmosphere, a meat clever murder as well as plenty of fog to go around.

THE TOY BOX has one major sin and that's the fact that it clocks in at 89-minutes, which is way too long for this type of film. There's really not much of a story so the film drags very badly at spots. Still, the bizarre atmosphere makes it worth sitting through.

In "Boogie Nights" Burt Reynold's porno director character has this hilarious monologue where he talks about his "dream" of making a porno film that people will sit and watch to the end even after they have. . . (well, see "Boogie Nights" if you haven't). Anyway, this is one of those rare movies. In fact, I'm sure most of the porn addicts out there would probably hate it because it's too flat-out weird to really be very erotic. But I actually admire sex movies that have the guts NOT to be the same old boring "erotic" crap. If you have seen and enjoyed "Cafe Flesh", "The Devil in Miss Jones",and "Let My Puppets Come" (the first and, to my knowledge, only hardcore porno puppet movie) you'll probably appreciate this film . On the other hand, if you're the type that eagerly lines up every week for the latest Jenna Jameson shot-on-video sex opus, don't bother.

First, about the plot--there is no plot. And that's good. There is nothing more annoying than when a movie like this tries to have plot. Imagine you have an hour and half or so to kill, but every five or ten minutes you have to have sex for five or ten minutes, you probably wouldn't get much done in that time, and you certainly wouldn't develop much as a character (especially if you were being played by your average porn star who couldn't act his or her way out of a crisp paper sack). This movie is ineptly made in some ways. Obviously, the dubbing is terrible (porno movies are dubbed?--who knew). But the best you can hope for in a movie like this is a lot of interesting scenes, and this movie has them in spades. What I enjoyed most about this movie was the cinematography (not surprisingly the director worked mainly as a cinematographer), and the truly unique dream-like atmosphere it creates. This isn't a pedestrian sex fantasy--it's a cross between a warped wet dream and a really, really strange nightmare. It's basically a surrealist soft-core porno movie.

You might want to check into getting professional help. I have seen a lot of movies in my 30 something years and this was without a doubt the single worst film of them all. Absolute trash. Really the most retarded movie of all time. This movie makes other bad movies look like citizen kane. Horribly dubbed to the point of being pathetic. Honestly the XXX movies of the seventies have better stories, plots, acting, and dubbing. It is chock full of nudity which is fine by me but still cant make this garbage worth watching. After 30 minutes I had to skip to the end because it was sooooo , well stupid. I had seen other comments talking about the twist ending. It was just as incoherent as the rest of the movie. Honestly people this movie is that bad. I like cheesy horror movies but this movie is too stupid for words. A new word needs to be created to describe just how bad this movie is. I could take a cheap camcorder and make a better movie. I don't even think this movie would be interesting under the influence of LSD and thats bad. lol... Avoid this movie like the plague. Sorry to rant and rave but it really sucked that bad.

I would like to see the movie before I could give you a review.

The Toy Box is something of a crossover between a porn flick and a mystery themed horror movie, and it doesn't manage to lampoon either of these two genres. However, that's not to say that this is necessarily a bad film; it's certainly not a particularly good one, but through it's bizarreness; there's something here worth watching. It's clear that the plot wasn't the foremost thing on director Ronald Víctor García's mind, so instead he just packed his film with sex, but there is a plot here and it focuses on a mysterious 'uncle' who hosts weird parties in which people are paid to perform erotic acts. This party is a bit different to usual as uncle's not there; or at least not alive and the guests must perform in front of his corpse. I can't say that this film is particularly erotic and that's why it doesn't succeed as a porn film. I've seen quite a lot of porn in my lifetime, however, so I can forgive this one for not being erotic and focus on the good things about the sex scenes - and the fact that they're weird and different to the norm is a good thing if you ask me because it means the film is a little different. Naturally the whole thing is completely inept and the acting is horrible, but obviously no one goes into a seventies porn expecting a masterpiece. There's a stupid twist at the end, but if you make it to the end of this film; you're unlikely to care by then anyway. Overall, I can't say that The Toy Box is brilliant or a must see, but it's better than I thought it would be and it comes somewhat recommended.