Demonic Toys 2

Well hey, there..it’s….a review! It’s been a while and what better way to get things back moving again than with Full Moon’s latest effort, the sequel to the wildly popular Demonic Toys. Granted this is actually the fourth movie involving these lovelies (see: Demonic Toys, Dollman vs Demonic Toys and Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys) this is being dubbed the actual sequel. I read somewhere that Time Warner (of all people) lobbied for this, I guess to make it more attractive to nostalgic viewers who happened to stumble across it on onDemand (where I did not find this, oddly enough).

Anyway.

After a pretty cool opening sequence where we see a pair of glop-covered hands stitching Baby Oopsie Daisy and Jack Attack back together and boxing them up, we open with our female lead, Caitlin (Alli Kinzel),  and Mr. Butterfield (Leslie Jordan) waiting in front of a … very familiar looking … castle. If you think you’ve seen this castle before, it’s because you have. DT2 was filmed at Charles Band’s own personal castle (who can say that?) in Italy, the same site where some Full Moon classics such as Castle Freak were filmed. A motorcade pulls up and out steps….wait..what the fuck? Dr. Lorca (Michael Citriniti) from Hideous?! Mmmk. The good doctor, who has apparently survived the acid bath he received the last time, albeit just a tad scarred, we saw him is joined by his superficial fiance (Elizabeth Bell), his “step-son” David (Lane Compton), their cowboy-hat adorned driver Eric (William Marquart) and Lorca’s spiritual advisor, Lillith (Selene Luna). Eric unloads the aforementioned crate from the back of the vehicle and we learn why Lorca has traveled to the castle. It seems Caitlin has discovered an antique toy that Lorca just has to have in his collection of oddities. Butterworth is there to “document” the transaction..but actually..there’s really no reason for him aside from comic relief and he delivers.

Once inside, we sit through some castle-wandering padding chock full of  the history of the joint. Turns out it was last owned by a baroness who dabbled in the black arts a bit and of course Lillith “feels” the energy in the air and indicates to Lorca that the castle is far from empty. Eventually, they get to the point of why Lorca is there and we meet our newest puppet, Devoletto, who – to the delight of Lorca – actually moves when his box is tapped upon. Caitlin explains that this is probably due to the doll having “springs and mechanisms and stuff” that react magnetically not the obvious explanation that the thing is probably possessed. Lillith, however, is hip to the game and touches the doll, launching her in to a cgi-fueled ‘vision’ proving that there’s something evil going on here. Awesome.

The gang ends up getting “stuck” at the castle after their cars mysteriously disappear (I won’t spoil the reason) and this is where business picks up and I’ll end the somewhat abbreviated recap.

So. If you’ve read other reviews on this movie that are floating around out there then you already know that this has been panned pretty hard in many circles. With that in mind, you’re probably waiting for me, as I often do, to launch in to some ‘wow, this was a total shitfest-esq’ diatribe and … surprise! That’s not going to happen because I actually really enjoyed this movie.

The acting here is surprisingly decent with everyone playing their role to an acceptable level of Full Moonitude and they make the characters enjoyable and easy to follow. I especially liked the flaming gay southern charm Leslie Jordan injects in to the Mr. Butterfield character, it added a light-hearted dimension to the movie that made it all the more fun to watch. I think that actually describes Demonic Toys 2 the best – fun. Even though this was shot for $80k in 5 days, you can tell the cast and staff had fun doing it and put a lot of work in to making a film that would appeal to fans of the DT franchise and Full Moon fans in general.

That’s not to say that this was without some pitfalls though. The special effects (particularly the gore) and puppetry work leave a lot to be desired. Most of the gore is actually digital as is some of the puppet stuff and it is very poorly done. The actual marionette puppet work is pretty bad too. The new doll, Devoletto, displays very little movement  and Jack Attack is too mechanical..even for a jack-in-the-box. Baby Oopsie Daisy is a little more mobile but the mouth work is awful. Frequently she will still be speaking after her mouth has stopped moving and they don’t come close to syncing the voice to her mouth movements a single time. I also didn’t like her voice…it was frequently difficult to understand and over-processed in post production as was Lillith’s voice when she becomes possessed.

All in all though, this was pretty fun to watch and it kept my attention well throughout. If you’re a Full Moon or evil doll movie fan, you should definitely check this out.

**** out of 5.

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You will find galleries of Full Moon trailers and Videozones on the Trailers and Videozones page (wow, really?! you don’t say!)  as well on the sidebar. I will also be adding Full Moon news updates now exclusively via Twitter (since typing out a WordPress post isn’t easy enough) and you’ll find those on the sidebar as well.

The rest of the changes are back-end type things that you’ll never see but they made me happy and will make life easier and encourage me to update this site more often. I’ve been on a long hiatus from doing reviews, I promise I’ll get back to them shortly.

I am also tossing around the idea of adding a forum on here. If I can get it integrated, look how I want it to look and do what I want it to do, you’ll see that coming here in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks as always for visiting.

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These shows are going to be a great time and include live FX (decapitations!), talks, guest appearances and other great stuff from Charles Band and Full Moon.

Check out the promo video below and go to FullMoonDirect to get tickets for the low, low price of only $10! The show is hitting 20-some cities so if you are a Full Moon fan, be sure to make plans to hit up one of the shows!

I will be at the Columbus, Ohio show so if you happen  to be attending, drop me an e-mail and we’ll catch up!

Click here to view the embedded video.

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There is now a Full Moon Horror page on cable onDemand including Comcast and Time Warner. I have TW here in Ohio and the page can be found under the Thrillers onDemand page. The page features almost a dozen Full Moon flicks including Subspecies (!), Dark Angel, Robot Wars, Dollman, Hell Asylum, Decadent Evil 2 and more. The movies are a low $1.99 each. Sweet.

Also, you can now follow Full Moon on Twitter. Click Here for the page or Click Here to follow via a handy RSS feed.

Also, also – new reviews coming soon. I have a few movies in my collection that went by the wayside in a recent move but I will be replacing and reviewing these shortly. As the weather cools down and my motivation for going outside decreases you will see a dramatic incease of updates to this page.

One more quick non-Full Moon related site note. I recently switched hosting for this site and am pleased to announce that things have gone extremely well. This site is optimized to the point of where it will load quickly just about anywhere but the new host, Downtown Host, has done a great job in delivering the site quickly and keeping it online 100% of the time. If you are looking for hosting, check Downtown out!

Toodles for now.

-FMR

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David DeCoteau directed this and while I’m not a fan of the blatant homo eroticism that is clearly evident in basically every movie he has ever had any thing to do with, I am a fan, in general, of his movies. I had high hopes for this going in and hoped it would be as decent as the shortened version.

So.

Our movie opens with 4 friends headed to an ominous looking castle (in Romania, no less) with the sad duty of attending the funeral of their compatriot.  Add to that, these friends have not seen each other in several years and are also all involved, in some way, in paranormal research. Hm. This sounds, largely, really familiar.

The group of pals is lead by Kristof f and is rounded out by another guy and two realtively attractive females. In short – basically the same cast outline of every Full Moon movie that came out in the late 90′s-early 00′s.  Also in the mix are Kristoff’s bitter rival, Bill and his two friends who lurk around, mostly outside the castle, bent on making Kristoff out to be the total chode he is and getting some sort of revenge for making a fool out of Bill in the past. In short – these guys are going to get waxed pretty quickly.

As it turns out, the castle the funeral viewing is taking place in is also the exact location of an old prison who’s inhabitants were treated less than nicely and are rumored to still haunt the building, wiping anyone who stands in their way off the face of the earth. Then, in the “gotcha” moment of the movie, it turns out the friend who’s funeral they are attending isn’t really dead so hoo-ha, giggles and chuckles. Kristoff really pulled a fast one over on them.

This is where we are introduced to the actual plot of the movie. It seems Kristoff’s dad, a trash-rag publisher, is holding a contest. The baddies (referred to as ‘The Executioners’) who supposedly haunt the castle posess something called the ‘Talon Key’ which opens a cursed cell in the jail. Kristoff’s goal is to prove to dear old dad that the paranormal crap is, in fact, true by finding the Talon Key. The one who finds it wins…*drum roll* (in Dr. Evil voice) one..million..dollars. Clearly about 10 times as much as it cost to make this movie. Maybe CB will just rent the money like they do in all of those rap videos that are floating around these days. Then again, maybe they won’t ever really mention it again.

Most of the rest of the movie is comprised by the mostly boring and uncaptivating characters wandering around the castle/funeral home/prison/whatever searching for the key. Also along the way, The Executioners show up and start wiping out characters unceremoniously starting with the aforementioned Bill and crew (the ones who are out to get Kristoff). Speaking of The Executioners, they are kinna neat but their costumes are terrible. They look like they were purchased at the Cappel’s after-Halloween clearance sale and bear a strong resemblance to Dr. Doom of Spider Man fame. To me any way. Regardless, I still like them and I like the way they take out  the characters.  They remind me a lot of the zombie types in Dead and Rotting and apparently influenced the same killing method used in total crapfest Petrified.

You can choose to watch from this point if you want to find out what happens (and be let down).

As I feared, the full length (if you want to call it that, clocking in at around 70 minutes) of this movie was actually inferior to the shortened version found on Horrific. The amount of padding, in the form of aimless wandering throughout the castle with very little substansive dialouge in-between, really kills the movie. At least in the short version a lot of this is thankfully taken  out and the movie cuts to the chase.

The acting in Prison Of The Dead is, like most Full Moon Pictures “efforts” from this time frame,  terrible and this  movie actually jacks it up a couple of notches and can be filed under “inexcusably awful”. None of the characters are interesting in the slightest and I found myself not caring about them, or what they were doing, at all. I was looking forward to each of them getting 86′ed and  *spoiler kinna* was disappointed with the end result in this category.

The biggest problem I have with this movie is that it is basically the exact same as all of the other Full Moon movies from this era. Just change out the character names and stick them in the same over-used Romanian castle and you’ve got Prison Of The Dead. This was utterly boring and pretty much pointless. If it had been any longer than 70 minutes I may have fallen completely asleep as I did find myself dozing off while watching this at 4 or 5pm with the blinds open on a sunny day.

I wouldn’t recommend this unless you have enjoyed the other Full Moon flicks from earlier on this decade and even then, you’d still have to be a total glutton for punishment for watching this. If you really want to see it, I’d suggest getting the Horrific DVD from Amazon or at your local Blockbuster/Hollywood Video. At least then you will get a couple of other Full Moon flicks (namely edited versions of The Killer Eye and Totem) to kill some time with as well.

*1/2 out of 5.

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Wow, what a gigantic pain in the ass this was to get a hold of. While VHS is great for some and sometimes gives older movies that “old school” feel, I was bound and determined to find a working DVD copy of Cryptz. I purchased this no less than 3 times on DVD and received it via both Blockbuster and Netflix and every copy was a dud. The movie froze about 25 minutes in with no recourse and taking measures to pull, if you will, the movie from the disc returned the same result.

The other day I figured I would visit my local Hollywood Video store and low-and-behold, they had a copy of Cryptz. I expected the same result as the previous discs when I got home but, believe it or not, it worked! So woooo!

As for the actual movie, I didn’t have many high hopes for it but read along.

The basic idea behind this (Fuck you, I’m) Danny (Motherfucking) Draven produced and directed Shadow Entertainment/Big City Pictures (re: Killjoy 1 and ..ugh.. 2, The Horrible Dr. Bones, The Vault, etc) installment circles around three “rappers” (who never actually rap) by the names of Tymez Skwared (Mr. Main Character Power), Fuzzy Down (aka Tardy Downz) and Likirish (who does a great low-budget Chris Tucker, down to the voice and all) on their search for that sweet pootenanny and the troubles it eventually brings them. Just a side note -  I’m sure I spelled the characters’ names wrong and honestly, I don’t care. I’m too lazy to IMDB it and they all had ridiculously stupid spellings to begin with, so butchering the spellings is not doing them  an injustice by any stretch of the imagination. Way to go, Draven.

One day while discussing their future rap careers, which apparently involves not rapping at all, an attractive woman walks by and after coming at her with several extremely bad pick up lines, they discover she works somewhere called “Cryptz”. She refuses to disclose the location of this clearly fine establishment and gives ol’ Tymez a pinch on the cheek and keeps moving.

Intrigued, Tymez calls our resident “creepy motherfucker”, Truck, to see if he knows where they can find this Cryptz joint and therein, this “fine honey”. Truck doesn’t know where its at but does warn them that it’s no good and to duct tape Tymez down to the bed before sunset. Of course our 3 fellows think this is some sort of joke and of course as soon as the sun sets, they’re off, at Tymez urging, sceeching around the city eventually finding the club.

Once inside, we’re treated to shots of the fine decor which is, according to the credits, some dude involved in the movie’s “place”. We’re also the happy recipients of a girl doing an admittedly fantastic pole dance routine to a horrible trance tune that literally goes on for about 15 minutes off-and-on.

Our boys soon find out that pole dances by flat chested women isn’t the only thing going on in “Cryptz” and, in fact, it is infested by evil vampire “bitches” hell bent on taking over the world.

I won’t spoil the rest for you.

While I hate Danny Draven much in the fashion that I would hate having my nuts unceremoniously stuffed in to a Salad Shooter ™, I must say that Cryptz was pretty good. It took after the first Killjoy flick in that there is some comedy to be had here along with a healthy dose of oozing, cheap gore. The acting is on par with the other Big City flicks (i.e – terrible) and the soundtrack is awful too. Production value is early 00′s Full Moon par for the course and the DVD does feature a few trailers as well as a making of (which I was too frightened to watch).

I’d recommend checking this out. I’m not happy about giving Danny Draven positive points for anything but he did a pretty good job with this and put together a terribly bad, yet fun movie.

***1/2 out of 5.

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Reviews on the way for Prison Of The Dead and Witchouse 2.

Stay up!

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You can read the articles here:

Article One

Article Two (with exclusive pics!)

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I have put a lot of time in to making the channel what it and have worked hard to provide you with 50+ trailers and Videozones from Full Moon movies.

And I’m not done. I still have a plethorea of Making-Ofs to upload and will continuously update the channel. Thanks for viewing and if you’re a Full Moon fan and have yet to take a peek, I highly recommend it!

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Netherworld

Buy Netherworld : Amazon

Just from reading the synopsis on the DVD, you can tell Netherworld isn’t going to be your average Full Moon flick..and it isn’t. Far from it. Written by Full Moon staple David Schmoeller (As Billy Chicago), Netherworld is definitely a very unique movie.

We open with a young gentleman with the early 90′s curl-let riding on a fishin (not “fishing”) boat and arriving at a massive structure of columns and giant concrete lions. Snazzy. Our friend, let’s call him…oh..Corey (how 90′s of you, Mr. Schmoeller) is met by a man, Beauregard Yates, Esquire,  in a sky blue suit and black leather fingerless gloves. YES. The guy is really reminiscent of Mr. Mascaro from Blood Dolls if you’ve been following along with this shit. Anyway, Masca…Mr. Yates carts Corey off to a giant southern estate that belonged to his father.

See, Corey’s father – Mr. Thornton – was massively rich but was also totally unknown to Corey as ol daddy did the stash’n'dash with  his old lady. Nice guy. Corey makes some illconceived attempts to get information about what his dad was like, but has no luck.

During this sequence we also meet Diane, a “smokin hot” 16 or 17 year old who ends up being a sort-of love interest for Corey. Somewhat offensive, but I’ll go with it. Diane’s overbearing and over protective mother, who is the caretaker of the Thornton estate is also introduced. We also notice that there are a literal shit ton (and that’s a technical term, kids) of birds around..and they seem to get a lot of focus. Mmmk.

While out for a jaunt one day with Diane, Corey runs in to a crazy guy named Bijou who tries to coax Corey in to going to a place called Tonk’s Place – a rough and rumble redneck bar just across the lake from the estate with the promise that he (Bijou) will tell him about his old man.

Oh shit, I forgot to mention – Corey gets his father’s last wishes documentation and it basically says “Lookee here boy, bring me back to life”. Nice. Corey becomes obsessed with this task and that convinces him, furthermore, to check out Tonk’s place where he is, eventually, introduced to Delores who is another a bird nut and also is the answer woman on how to bring Corey’s daddy back to life. Delores is some sort of super hooker that lures men in to her lair, only to steal their souls and place them in the bodies of birds. The birds are big time here. Five alarm weirdness call.

Our first meeting with Delores also results in a not-too-nice gentleman getting his eyes gouged *in* and eventually his head crushed by concrete hand. More weirdness, but whatever. The hand floats and flies around – ala The Tall Man’s spheres – when summoned for duty.

I’m sure I missed some key plot points, but that’s what you get when you have the short term memory of a retarded tit mouse.

With all that crap out of the way, I really really really liked this movie. The filming quality is good (good ol 35mm) and really shows a distinct difference in what Full Moon was capable of during their relationship with Paramount. I’m not sure what happened, although I’d guess it was due to a faux pau from Mr. Band, but it is nonetheless really unfortunate that the relationship couldn’t continue.

The music is also good here, being done by one of the guys from Bon Jovi (Hu-WAAAAHHHHHHH!) and also features a couple of performances from Edgar Winter. Good shot on that one.

The acting here is solid and on point and while the script (as always) could’ve used a little work, it still carries out nice and smooth and keeps you interested in the movie. Shocking.

The DVD itself is another high point. It’s chock full of a ton of extras including a 26 minute long marathon Videozone.

This has become one of my favorite Full Moon flicks and if you haven’t already seen it, it comes highly (standard “hehe”) recommended from me.

**** 1/2 out of 5.

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