#17 - Dollman vs. Demonic Toys (1993)
(dir. Charles Band)
This is actually a "sequel" to three different Full Moon films - Demonic Toys, Dollman, and Bad Channels. Out of the three, I've only seen Demonic Toys, but it didn't end up mattering, as the movie is kind enough to recap them all for us. In fact, even though this movie is only 61 minutes long, at least 15 minutes of that is reused footage from the three previous films. Another 5 minutes is spent on an unnecessarily long opening credits sequence, and there are at least 10 minutes of shots that are nothing but Dollman standing next to oversized props so we can see how small he is, or the Toys just kind of standing around making goofy noises. I don't think there is much more than 30 minutes of actual movie here.
So, it's pretty clear that this is basically just an attempt to get some more mileage out of the props and sets from the previous films. However, we are talking about a bunch of really goofy direct-to-video films here, so the lack of artistic integrity isn't exactly shocking. I went into it expecting a dumb low-budget film with a good sense of humor, and that's kind of what I got. There are a few funny scenes, even more so-bad-its-funny scenes, and many that fall completely flat. Pretty much nothing that happens makes any real sense, but the film does deliver on its title - we get to see Dollman fighting the Demonic Toys.
If this sounds at all appealing to you, I guess there are worse ways to spend an hour. I certainly laughed a few times. If you really need a "rubber puppet monster" movie though, just stick with the best - which is Ghoulies II, of course.
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