After the horrible BETTER WATCH OUT! and INITIATION, to say I had no expectations for SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 5: THE TOY MAKER is an understatement. But, surprisingly enough, the fifth entry of the Christmas-themed franchise is actually a good amount of fun.
It follows child Derek, who sees his father brutally murdered by a toy that mysteriously appeared on their front porch a few nights before Christmas. For some reason, the police do nothing about it, and Derek and his mother are left alone. But presents are still appearing on their porch, people are breaking into their house, and there's an ex-military man that follows them everywhere! What's going on? Does it have anything to do with the titular toy maker (played by Mickey Rooney!)? The film drags at times, and the acting isn't even bad enough to draw that many laughs. But where THE TOY MAKER shines is its inventive death scenes, which involve a bunch of killer toys. Obviously, PUPPET MASTER, DOLLS and the like have covered this territory before, but gruesome murder-set-pieces designed by Screaming Mad George keep this from being a complete waste of time. There's killer roller skates, army men and larvae, all of which are pretty damn fun.
The whole thing looks like a TV movie, a lot of it is dull as dirt and we've seen the same plot myriads of times before, but there are enough awesome moments here (including a head-scratching ending featuring robot dry-humping) to justify a recommendation for trash fanatics. At the very least, it's a better waste of your time than SNDN 3 and 4.
It follows child Derek, who sees his father brutally murdered by a toy that mysteriously appeared on their front porch a few nights before Christmas. For some reason, the police do nothing about it, and Derek and his mother are left alone. But presents are still appearing on their porch, people are breaking into their house, and there's an ex-military man that follows them everywhere! What's going on? Does it have anything to do with the titular toy maker (played by Mickey Rooney!)? The film drags at times, and the acting isn't even bad enough to draw that many laughs. But where THE TOY MAKER shines is its inventive death scenes, which involve a bunch of killer toys. Obviously, PUPPET MASTER, DOLLS and the like have covered this territory before, but gruesome murder-set-pieces designed by Screaming Mad George keep this from being a complete waste of time. There's killer roller skates, army men and larvae, all of which are pretty damn fun.
The whole thing looks like a TV movie, a lot of it is dull as dirt and we've seen the same plot myriads of times before, but there are enough awesome moments here (including a head-scratching ending featuring robot dry-humping) to justify a recommendation for trash fanatics. At the very least, it's a better waste of your time than SNDN 3 and 4.