Demonic Toys; 1992, 83 min.; Full Moon Entertainment; available on Netflix until 3/1/2012
Oh, Full Moon Entertainment and you’re love for animated puppets/toys/creepy sh*t. If there’s one thing you can trust Charles Band (B-movie veteran, and head of Full Moon) with, it’s making inanimate things creepy and homicidal. Oh, and really, really hokey. This legacy started with Band’s Puppet Master series, and the hits just kept coming after that: Dollman, Prehysteria!, and yes, most recently Gingerdead Man. Couched in there is Demonic Toys, a straight-to-VHS feature that has it’s own “versus” features against a couple of the aforementioned flicks. If there’s one thing Demonic Toys is missing, it’s not plot lines. This thing has so many loose strands, you wonder if the writer could tie his own shoes. There’s a busted black-market arms deal, some bizarre sacrificial blood sequence that’s never quite explained (at least satisfactorily), several “spirits” who are really just a deus ex machina, a completely bewildering scene where a devil-baby is given to some trick-or-treaters in a flashback, and animated toys who are controlled by the evil spirit, but really seem to have their own agenda. Which brings me to the toys: there’s a clown jack-in-the-box who looks like a borrowed prop from Killer Klowns from Outer Space, a robot who shoots sparks from canon-arms, a teddy bear that was destined to be evil, and finally “Baby Oopsie Daisy,” who seems to be placed in the film as an attempt at humor. Basically, it’s a baby doll that says “f*ck” a lot. Don’t be fooled, it is comic. But not in the way I think it was intended. What to expect? Well, aside from the static above, there’s plenty of gore, a station wagon with a giant papier-mâché chicken on top (and yes, it explodes), and a punk-rock girl getting her eyes plucked out. There’s also a little boy with pointy fingernails and an overdubbed adult voice. Part Rosemary’s Baby, part Puppet Master, this film is truly so-bad-it’s-good. I’ll give this one 1/5, but not because it’s not entirely watchable; rather, the opposite, it’s just so stupid you’ll have a great time.
Uncle Sam; 1997, 89 min.; dir. William Lustig; available on Netflix until 8/2/2012
Full disclosure: It should be known that I really wanted to review Jack Frost (no, not the Michael Keaton flick) by the same production company, however, it isn’t on Netflix... yet! So if you can get your hands on it, feel free to swap the two out for your screening party. It’s also worth note (and was completely unintentional) that Uncle Sam was directed by the very man who directed last week’s Maniac. Though, this is a completely different beast in tone, style, and content. Anyway, the idea’s basic enough: Sam Harper is in the Air Force. His helicopter is shot down accidentally by US Forces (friendly fire, ain’t it a bitch?), and he comes back to kill anyone who’s besmirching the red-white-and-blue. His nephew back home idolizes him, while it turns out that Sam wasn’t really a grade-a American--it’s insinuated that he was physically violent (perhaps even sexually) toward his sister and wife, and that he was in general a sh*tty dude. Anyway, he comes back as a scorched zombie, clad in an Uncle Sam costume to wreak havoc on the corrupt at the annual Fourth of July festival. I pair this with Demonic Toys because it too is in the vein of so-dumb-it’s-great-fun b-movie fare. Uncle Sam has some awesome explosions, a pretty killer make-up job on Sam Harper’s immolated flesh, a character I dub “telepathic fireworks boy” who, because he’s blinded and scarred by a fireworks accident, wears some awesome Ray-Bans, gets left on the front lawn while other characters go inside (on several occasions), and whose dialogue is mostly magical telepathy that’s never explained--I think we’re supposed to assume he acquired the ability after his fireworks accident. Finally, Isaac Hayes--yes, THE Isaac Hayes--plays a pretty prominent role as a peg-legged war vet. Another 1/5, but again, because it’s so dumb that it rules.
Sit back with some friends and enjoy these movies; let us know how your screening party goes in the comments, or at My.Ology.
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