Finally the saga is over - at least for now - and wam bam thank you mam, here's Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker, starring the one and only Mickey Rooney who years earlier bashed the first movie because it used a child-icon like Santa to kill grown-up's in sexual situations! Obviously he didn't hesitate to sign up to play Petto (which, when it's pronounced in the movie, sounds like Paedo!), the crazy toy maker inventing toys to kill little children on Christmas eve! This time Brian Yuzna took a step back and produced and wrote the story, but Screaming Mad George is back doing the "surrealistic visual design and effects". This one also tries, very weakly, to connect it to the other movies in the franchise, Neith Hunter is back as Kim and Conan Yuzna as Lonnie - and Clint Howard's Ricky is back and is now a successful Santa-actor at a shopping mall! Crazy. Damn crazy!
Derek (William Thorne - who also showed up in Charles Band's Demonic Toys, very fitting!) witnesses his father get killed by a bizarre toy on the night before Christmas. Two months later he and his mom Sarah (Jane Higginson) has moved to LA to start a new life. But a mysterious stalker is lurking around the neighborhood, and there's something very fishy with old toy maker Petto and his oddity of a son, Pino (I guess you can imagine why...). Soon people starts to die around them, all from very bizarre toys (including Larry the Larva!), bloodthirsty toys!
If part 4 jumped the shark, part 5 jumped a god damn Megalodon! But it also managed to make it more related to Christmas, compared to some of the earlier movies. Sure, the toy-theme could have been set during the whole year (or Halloween, just look at the masterpiece Halloween 3!), but the inclusion of the friendly, fat Mickey Rooney make it more Christmas than anything else. It also reminded me of Stephen King's 1972 short story Battleground, not the basic storyline, just some of the details and one or two scenes of carnage.
I actually once wrote a short story inspired by Battleground, but with conservative Christian pixies attacking a transgender person, wanting to celebrate Midsummer in his apartment. But that's a different story.
This time Martin Kitrosser directs, and while the spirit of Yuzna sure is there - a lot of it - it's still a bit calmer and less spectacular than if Yuzna actually directed it. But it's still packed with some sex, a few very fun graphic kills and gore and a truly far-out final which could have generated a whole different franchise I was was the rights holder. But I'm not, so instead this became the last in the series (even if some people claim 2012's Silent Night to be a loose remake, but I doubt it!).
Surprisingly enough, this one and part 4 is the funniest (except maybe the first one) in a trashy series of Christmas-themed horror movies. It's fun how such a franchise just gets more and more creative, and it's needed. That's why movies like Halloween 3, Jason X and Jason Goes to Hell is so much fun, they took the correct route instead of repeating themselves.
I'll miss this series. They don't make crap like this nowadays.
"starring the one and only Mickey Rooney who years earlier bashed the first movie because it used a child-icon like Santa to kill grown-up's in sexual situations! Obviously he didn't hesitate to sign up to play Petto (which, when it's pronounced in the movie, sounds like Paedo!), the crazy toy maker inventing toys to kill little children on Christmas eve!"
ahhahahahhahahhah
Ahhhhh....the irony!
"If part 4 jumped the shark, part 5 jumped a god damn Megalodon!"
I´m stealing this from you!
"It also reminded me of Stephen King's 1972 short story Battleground, not the basic storyline, just some of the details and one or two scenes of carnage."
Great fucking story....I hope you saw the adaptation with William Hurt in Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King(2006).
As soon as someone makes killer toys films I´m reminded of Kings short story.
Maybe a new theme week.....about killer toy films?
How about Fred?
"I actually once wrote a short story inspired by Battleground, but with conservative Christian pixies attacking a transgender person, wanting to celebrate Midsummer in his apartment. But that's a different story."
You should upload it on this website.....
"Surprisingly enough, this one and part 4 is the funniest (except maybe the first one) in a trashy series of Christmas-themed horror movies. It's fun how such a franchise just gets more and more creative, and it's needed."
Yeah.....the longer the franchise goes, the wilder twist is needed.....always felt John Sayles script for JP4 was the right way to go.....sadly, that will never happen.
"I'll miss this series. They don't make crap like this nowadays."
You never know.....someone might be reading this.....presonally I believe that a bland PG-13 remake will be made first, not another installment.
But who knows......good review and thanks.
Posted by: Megatron | December 25, 2013 at 20:39