31 Days of Halloween – Demonic Toys

Demonic Toys

Director: Peter Manoogian 
Screenplay: David S Goyer
Minutes: 83
Year: 1992
Score: 6.00
Release: Amazon Video

Welcome to the 2018 edition of 31 Days of Halloween. I will write these up as quickly as I can but cannot guarantee that they will all post during the month of October, but I will try. I watched Demonic Toys for two reasons. First, it was 9:45 on the 1st and I realized I hadn’t decided what to watch; I remembered buying the digital of this when Amazon had a sale and two, I love creepy toys movies.

From Fullmoondirect.com:

They’re cute and cuddly by day, lethal demons by night. Ruthless killing machines come alive for just one purpose…death. And for five adults in an abandoned warehouse, every child’s worst nightmare has become a deadly reality…

While on a stakeout, Judith Gray (Tracy Scoggins), a beautiful, tough cop, is trapped inside a warehouse full of toys. But these are no ordinary playthings – they have been awakened to murderous life by a strange child of darkness, “The Kid” (Daniel Cerny).
Each toy feeds on blood: Jack Attack heads straight for the throat, Grizzly Teddy is not afraid to show its claws, and Baby Oopsie Daisy is truly to die for. Now it’s up to Gray and a passing delivery boy, Mark Wayne (Bentley Mitchum), to stop the deadly, DEMONIC TOYS!

Okay, this is important, the Demonic Toys you can get on Amazon video has a rather cruddy image in 4:3, so what we have is more proof that physical media deserves to be king. You can see in the trailer below that the blu looks really good (for a low budget, direct to video, horror flick). That being said this version did a lot to simulate the way I watched many of the early Full Moon videos. All it lacked was a filter that overlays an irritating VHS shudder effects. I am glad it wasn’t there, but it was replaced by a few instances of digital after image which is the fault of my connection and the now the feed, I presume.

Anyway, enough of that. The first evil toys movie that I watched was probably Puppet Master, one or two. Whichever it was burned the Full Moon logo into my brain and I knew that there was a decent chance that if I rented something with that logo I would be, at the very least, entertain. And, as a young man watching horror movies it would tick the necessary boxes, blood and breasts. I was an easy sell back then, I am only slightly more picky these days. An evil toy seems to be a natural progression of an avid toy collector who, undoubted at one point, imagined Snake-eye going rogue and attacking the Joes.

Movies like Puppet Master and Demonic Toys personify these imaginations and fears with some seriously creepy toys, like Baby Oopsy Daisy which speaks like a ragged sailor who kills people, Jack Attack, a jack-in-the-box who could have been the first creep clown I saw (slightly before IT), and Grizzly Teddy and disturbingly vicious teddy bear. These toys are used to corral some 20 somethings into a overstock toy warehouse so a demon can impregnate…you know, I want to leave that to you.

This is not a great movie, barely even a good movie. But it has its merits with strong gore effects and puppetry. The final girl, while not the best overall story, is more than just a virgin teenager so there is slight (very, very, little) character building. It should absolutely not be your first choice but it is a pretty sleazy alternative.

Also, tangentially related, the film is written by The Dark Knight writer David S Goyer.

Special Features:

• Original Demonic Toys VideoZone
• Rare Full Moon Trailers

Trailers

Director: 5 – Cinematography: 6 – Edit: 6 – Parity: 4 – Main performance: 6 – Else performance: 6 – Score: 6 – Sound: 7 – Story: 6 – Script: 3 – Effects: 9 – Design: 8 – Costumes: 4 – Keeps interest: 9 – Lasting: 5