"Joe Petto." (*snicker*)
It was Friday the 13th in December of 2024, and I was looking for a Christmas horror movie, so I went on Amazon Prime and watched SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT 5: THE TOYMAKER (1991). I’ll give it this much… It was NOT what I was expecting, which is not to say that it was good. In fact, it’s fucking ridiculous. I was curious about it because when the first in the series came out. Mickey Rooney acted as a voice of old, wholesome Hollywood in loudly condemning it, but come the 5th entry, he’s in it as the titular character. For an entry in a series that made its name for being a gory affront to Christmas and Santa, this one does almost nothing to earn its R-rating, and its plot is just ludicrous.
It’s two weeks before Christmas and a little boy receives an anonymous Christmas present on his front porch at night. His dad sees the kid opening the gift but he stops the boy and scolds him for opening the door at night, then orders him out of the room. Dad then opens the gift, which was moving, and he’s attacked by the toy inside, eventually stumbling toward the fireplace and fatally impaling himself through the eye with a poker. Two weeks later and there’s no mention of an investigation into the circumstances of the death, while the boy has been traumatized into a state of silence. His harried mother does her best to cope, but things get weird when toy maker Joe Petto (Mickey Rooney) enters the picture, and we meet his weird son, Pino. There’s also a mysterious man who seems to be stalking the mother and boy, and more deadly toys start turning up with dire results.
The gore is minimal for this sort of thing, which was a disappointment, and there’s no proper slasher per se, but when all is revealed at the end, it’s like something out of GOOSEBUMPS, but for adults. Not scary worth a damn, but perfect fodder for having friends over and watching it while engaging in one’s intoxicant of choice. And though it’s quite tepid, do stick with it for the last reel…
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