Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker (1991)

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 5: THE TOY MAKER

WRITERS: Martin Kitrosser and Brian Yuzna

DIRECTOR: Martin Kitrosser

STARRING: Jane Higginson as Sarah Quinn
    Tracy Fraim as Noah Adams
    Brian Bremer as Pino
    William Thorne as Derek
    Neith Hunter as Kim
    Amy L. Taylor as Merideth
    Eric Welch as Buck
    Van Quattro as Tom Quinn
    Clint Howard as Ricky
    Conan Yuzna as Lonnie
    Mickey Rooney as Joe Petto

QUICK CUT: After her husband is killed by a mysterious Christmas present that no one feels like investigating, Sarah and her son keep getting visited by people fom the last movie, and a strange toy maker and his son.  And then things get really, really weird.

THE MORGUE

    Derek - Our lead victim, in that he is repeatedly targeted by the toys that keep killing people.  Since his father was killed in front of him, he doesn't say or do much on his own, so he's pretty much a mute lump through most of the movie.

    Sarah - Derek's mom, and she's doing her best to try and help her son during the trying times of Christmas.  Oh, and her husband's death.  Although the kid seems way more affected by it than she is.  Make of that what you will.

    Noah - A mysterious lurking man with far too much interest in Derek and Sarah.  His mystery unfolds over the course of the movie, and actually feels somewhat satisfying.

    Joe Petto - The local toy store owner with way too coincidental of a name.  He lost his wife a long time ago, and takes it out on his son, but otherwise he seems to love children, and making toys for them.

    Pino - If you thought Joe had a heck of a name, then there's his son.  I ain't saying anything about the pair, but I bet you can figure out a lot right now.

THE GUTS: I have weird deja vu of watching The Stuff, while watching this merciful ending to the Silent Night, Deadly Night series.  It kicks off with a kid staring out his bedroom window and wandering the house late at night.  And you thought Santa's stomach was full of jelly, but he really can't get enough of that wonderful Stuff.

The kid walks in on his mom and dad wrestling, and at least it doesn't trigger flashbacks to when Billy saw the same thing with a nun.  That is a step up, at least.  Derek pretty much shrugs that off instead of going insane and killing people, then heads downstairs and finds a present on the porch waiting for him.

Nono, we did that movie last year!

As he's tearing into the package, Derek gets interupted by his dad who is just as upset at the kid being up, as he is about opening the door at night.  I'd be upset too, if my kid had a habit of not closing it like Derek!  The thing practically bounced off the doorframe like it was rubber.

So, once Derek is shuffled off to bed, dad goes to clean up the mess, but is interrupted when the box starts moving on its own.  Aww man, and they didn't put any airholes?  This Schroedinger's Cat is already dead.

Inside, dad finds a Pokeball and wonders where it came from as he passes it from one hand to the next.  He presses the button on top, and up pops a Santa face!  How smiley and delightful!  It spins around and plays a jaunty tune that quickly turns to the familiar funereal dirge, and reveals a more sinister Santa face, with a wicked grin full of spiky teeth.

The mouth opens and closes, belching sparks, and finally long red tentacles lash out and wrap around the dad's face and neck, making it look rather a lot like the guy is wearing a gigantic, oversized, novelty ball gag.  Not that I would know anything about what might look like.

New from Weyland-Yutani, Holiday Facehuggers!

Derek never quite makes it to bed, and watches from the stairs, looking over the banister at his dad being teabagged by a robot Santa.  And I can't believe I just typed that.

The dad struggles to get the thing off before he can't breathe anymore, and hilariously enough, it is not the actual Santa that kills him.  Tom stumbles around, knocking things over, and he trips on his own feet and lands face first on a fireplace poker he himself knocked to the floor.  Way to go, Tom!

As the credits roll on, they are nowhere near as cool as #4's, first of all.  Second, they remind me a ton of Puppet Master's credits, since both pan around and over closeups of a puppet, but this time it's a Santa.  And finally, there is a credit for surrealistic visual design.  As opposed to the rest of the realistic visual effects.

Mentos 5: The Fresh Maker

Surprisingly, we actually stick with the remains of this family.  Usually a scene like that is just random carnage set up.  I am impressed that we get to see some fallout.  Fallout which includes Derek watching the old Rambo cartoon!!  Awesome!  ...Wait.  He kept the deadly Santa ball?!  It's on his shelf!  How is that not evidence?  Or at least thrown away!

Anyways, Derek isn't taking things too great, and remains distant despite his mother's attempts to get through to him.  Maybe some friends will help, and...Holy crap!  Kim!  And Lonny!  From SNDN4!  They're paying a visit to this movie!  That's kinda cool.  And so much less annoying than just reusing footage.

They try to figure out what might be wrong with Derek, or how to fix him, at least.  Hey Kim, why not suggest some fear eating worms?  Those work wonders, right?

Oh geeze, and they're even advertising the Santa ball of death on tv.  With arm and leg extending action!  Man, marketing campaigns start earlier with each movie.  This one is IN the movie!  Derek, recognising the ball, suitably freaks out.

Send it to that special someone...you want dead!!

So, after we see a creepy guy staring at Derek from his car, we jump with Derek and his mom over to the crappy little toy store, and I kinda wish it was Ira's Toys, six years later.

Inside, they don't see the owner...oh, you have to be kidding me.  His name is Joe.  Joe Petto.  GEPETTO.  Get it??  I need to smack someone for that joke.

They get scared when a guy in a monster mask jumps out to spook them.  Joe comes out from the back and apologises for Pino acting like a teenager.  ...Really?  Joe Petto and his kid Pino?  PINOCCHIO?  Are we really doing this, movie?  Where's his best friend, Jim?

And to top things off, Joe?  Played by Mickey Rooney.  Who was very open about his opinions of how terribly wrong the first movie was with killer Santas.  But I guess it's ok, so long as the Santas are robots, eh Mick?

That kid shows the face of true fear.

Joe sends Pino Grigio into the back to work on stuff, while he takes care of his friends.  This is actually a nice little scene.  Mickey shows why he's such a well known actor, and actually shows some decent emotion while talking about the death of Sarah's husband.  It's a nice, quiet character moment, which I always welcome.

He even tries to get through to Derek by talking to him, and some lame magic, and Rooney is just charming enough that you think he just might pull it off.  Derek still doesn't talk, but he does smile, so hey.  Progress?

The boy who would be a puppet sneaks up and tries to give Derek one of the toys his father made, which looks oddly familiar.  It may well be a reused roachworm from the last movie.

Meanwhile, and it took me awhile to get this, they're all being watched by the creepy guy who was watching Derek earlier.  Now, he looks just enough like Pino that I thought it was bad editing, but once I saw the two together, it all made sense.

Anyways, once they're gone, Joe yells at his kid for being a pain, and it's a good switch for Rooney to go from kindly store owner to angry father.  He's no Robert Culp, but he may still be the best actor in this movie.  Until the creepy guy interrupts the rant, and buys some toys.

Our weirdo retires to his motel room or whatever, which is buried in toys, until there's a knock on the door.  The manager is none too happy about the bouncing cheque, and wants our friend to get out.  Unless there's cash.  Which there isn't.  But when Creepy Lurksalot offers to make a toy for the manager's kid, THAT somehow gets him the rest of the night in his room?  Riiight.  Even better, he gives him the roachworm toy.

As the manager drives off, the roachworm crawls out of its box, and he picks it up off the floor before it crawls up his leg.  Larry the larvae keeps coming, until the guy gets annoyed at the broken toy, and tosses it in the back seat.  But since no one tosses Larry in the corner, it climbs up over the seat, sparking and chittering, then climbs down the guy's throat when he screams.

It keeps crawling down the guy's throat until he loses control of the car, and ends up dying from a worm down his throat.  But the fun isn't over yet!  We get to wacth as Larry sucks the eyes out from the inside, and crawl through the empty sockets.  I'm not sure if that's possible, but it is awesome.

Worst lollipop ever.

As if that wasn't enough, the car skids off the road, flips over, lands on its roof, and you guess it, explodes!  The only way more insult could be added to this guy's injury is if a reindeer comes along and craps on the ashes.

Later, creepy stalker guy sneaks back into Petto's Toys that night and creeps around the closed store.  In the back room, he finds photos from 20 years previously of Joe and Pinnochle, with the kid not looking any younger.  They are really going to do this, aren't they?

The next day, Sarah and Derek are about to go see Santa, and find yet another package on their front porch, with no address and only another note to not open 'til Christmas.  You would think with what happened last time, they might report the present.

At the mall, Santa is going on break, and when he takes off his hat and beard, we see it is none other than the creeper himself.  He talks with some fellow Santas in the break room, and one of them... 

...  Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

Why yes, that is Ricky from Initiation.

I did say they're hard to kill last time out, didn't I?

Do you doubt it?  Do you think it's just Clint Howard making a buck and a nod to the other movie/movies?  Oh no.  They call him Ricky in open dialogue.  That's him.  Because every Christmas has a Ricky.  He seems a lot more talkative this time out.  I guess his brain healed nicely from #3.  And being killed from #4.

Creeper sees Derek outside, and insists Ricky let him take his shift.  Ricky is confused, but does it, since he'd rather not deal with any more kids than he has to.  And frankly, this does not seem like Ricky at all.  Any of them.  Even the previous Ricky.  He seems perfectly normal.  If it had been any other actor, I'd just chalk it up to coincidence.  But it's Clint Howard!

Anyways, across town from that confusion, we see Pino Noir sneaking around and finding a key left under a stone with Pino '75 carved into it.  I dunno, it might still be a family name, right?  He uses the key to break in, and I am damned sure that is Derek's house.

Speaking of, back at the mall, Derek gets plopped on Santa Stalker's lap, but still refuses to talk, so won't say what he wants for Christmas.  He also seems to recognise Santa from the toy store just by looking into his eyes.  Man, this guy got susses out that fast, by a kid, with all that on?  And Clark Kent goes unnoticed.  There is no justice in the world.

Sarah tries to take Derek home, but Santa Creep tries to get the kid to stay.  When you're the weirdo and you work next to Ricky, it is time to seek help.

That really roasts my chestnuts!

After nearly five minutes of watching Pinecone wander their home and touch pretty much everything, Derek and Sarah pull in the driveway.  The music builds to a crescendo, Derek wanders the house with a glass bottle, he turns the corner and...NOTHING!  Build up, and no release!  Instead, Kim wanders back into the movie to remind us she exists.  Oh, and that she saw someone inside.

Sarah rushes upstairs, finds her kid laying on the ground and has a moment of panic before realising that he's just listening to some music and relaxing on the floor.  She's relieved for all of half a second, before Pino bursts out of the closet and runs away like the fifth little pig.

On the back of all that, Sarah actually does something smart.  She heads straight to Joe to yell at him and find out what the hell that was.  Joe's clueless and dismissive of her claims, but Sarah's pretty damned insistent.  She wants to know, or she's off to the cops.  I like Sarah.

Joe relents and explains that they used to live in Sarah's house, until times got tough and they had to move.  Ever since, Pino Place Like Home has wanted to go back, and that must be why he broke in.  Which makes a lot of sense.  Sarah just doesn't know how long ago it was!

This is actually another decent scene.  The two characters play off each other well, the acting is decent, and every reaction and explanation makes sense.  You don't get many dialogue heavy scenes in slasher movies, and even rarer when they actually add something to the story.  You almost feel for Pino, even if he is a little skeevy guy who doesn't age.  We can all relate to wanting to go back to an old home.

Also, while Sarah is understanding of what happened with them, she's still not happy about the break-in, and warns if it happens again, she will call the cops.  You go, girl.  Buck the trend and do things that make sense!

Joe heads to the backroom to deal with Pino Phillips, but he won't come out of his hidey hole in the floor.  But Joe will wait, the boy can't hide forever.  I bet he can wait longer than Joe, since only one of them doesn't age.

Oh right, there was that package left on the porch for Derek.  Sarah decides it's ok to open one present, to try and cheer her son up, and she grabs that one.  The one that says not to open.  No one listens...

The kid is smarter than his mother though, and has a memory going back 40 minutes, so he doesn't want to open it.  And that's when Kim shows up again to remind us she exists.  And that she's not the one who dropped it off, and Derek tries to get rid of the package.

It would probably just land on the stoop and be brought back inside.

Meanwhile, the two women keep talking, most of it way in the background so you can't hear it, but I just love when they pull in close so you can hear them, and it's on Kim's line that she can't believe the stuff she's lived through.  Yeah, the last movie was somethin'.

Derek sneaks past them and tosses the present in the trashcan outside, where a waiting Lonny sneaks over and swoops it up.  He tears right into the box, ignoring the tag, and inside he finds a pair of rollerblades.  The 90s!

Back at Joe Petto's *twitch* Pino is getting a yelling for almost bringing the cops down on them and...Bahaha, Mickey Rooney yelling incoherently and playing drunk is HILARIOUS.  That alone is worth the price of admission.

Pino fights back and they struggle, until he shoves his father down to the ground.  He quickly apologises, and Joe says thank you with a beer bottle to the head.  Then he proceeds to kick his son's ass by throwing him around the back room of the store.  Holy crap, Mickey Rooney kicking ass.  More awesome.  Made all the better by the character's glee at tossing the kid around and backhanding him.

I am Mickey Freakin' Rooney!!

Finally, dad pushes his son away, and he falls through the trap door.  Not that we see it, mainly because I suspect that door doesn't actually GO anywhere.  Instead of seeing him fall through it, we cut immediately to him rolling down the stairs into the basement.

While Joe is shocked into soberness over what he's done, the movie jumps back to Derek, who is busy watching tv and...aw no.  No no no!  NO movie!  They don't clearly show the tv screen, but I distinctly hear someone saying, "Kim?"  He was watching Initiation, wasn't he?  Damn you, Silent Night Deadly Night!!

And considering Kim just left the house, I do not even want to think of the mind bending implications.  Because it hurts to much!  I could write an entire rant on why this does not work.  I feel like Anna Paquin and Kristen Bell in Scream 4 trying to make sense of the Stab movies doing the same thing.

Oh right, there's a movie that I'm watching here.  Lonny is still outside zipping along with his roller blades, almost running over a kid that was picking on him earlier.  And that's when the skates go supercharged and rocket him down the sidewalk uncontrollably.

Feet, please fail me now!

And as Lonny is careening towards a garage door, this is the exact moment that the Santa ball of doom falls off the shelf and activates, looking at Derek.  Being one of the smartest people in ANY of these movies, Derek grabs a baseball bat and smashes the fuck out of the ball.

Anyways, the skates blast him out into the road where he gets hit by a car.  Not the most efficient skates of death.  Do they just whiz you back and forth until you hit something deadly?  With all that extra propellant, why not just explode?

My point is kinda proven when we cut to Lonny bandaged and bruised in a hospital bed, mumbling.  So, clearly not dead.  Worst death trap ever.

With facial reconstruction, no one will ever know he was in this movie.

And the writer seems to have remembered that Kim is a reporter, as she shows Sarah the skates of death...er, mild contusions.  They've clearly been tampered with, what with all the wires taped to them.  You would think that would have been noticable before putting them on, but whatever.

Back at the house, Derek is all alone, and the doorbell rings.  On the other side is creepy dude, saying that Derek doesn't know who he is, but he would like to be Derek's friend.  And not helping the creepiness.  But he has a present for Derek too, a special toy!  Because the kid is having such great luck with those, this month.

And Derek isn't so alone, as the babysitter finally wakes up and notices the stranger.  She shoves him out, blocking all his questions, and locking the door.  Damn, this movie is just rotten with smart people!  I am impressed.

Well, just as I'm impressed, then she's not that smart as she tells the guy where Sarah works so he can pay her a visit.  I guess that's better than letting him hang around the kid, but still.  Not unexpectedly, we find Sarah walking through a completely empty parking garage.

Oh movie.  Just when you were impressing me, you fall back on cliche.  You know that scene in every horror movie, where the person has lost the ability to stick a key in the door?  Then drops the key under the car?  Yeah, we got that here too.  I will admit I have almost never been in a similiar circumstance, but I find it so hard to believe that anyone would be so scared they would miss the lock so badly, as people do in the movies.  Maybe a little off, like millimeters as you try and find the hole, but to jab the side of the car?  Come on.

But things get even worse as she reaches for the key, and pushes it down a drainage grate she just HAPPENED to park over.  Come ON!

The true face of horror - Dana Carvey.

At least creepy guy shows up to move the stupid along.  Sarah does what anyone would do upon seeing the guy that's been stalking their family; she runs.  But Spooky McCreepsalot isn't wearing high heels and a dress, so grabs her with ease.

Then they start making out.

Well.  That was an odd turn.

Man, I had such hope for this movie.  Things were going mostly okay.  Then the stupid started dribbling down in globs.  And to top it off, the babysitter is reading Pinnochio to Derek.  WE GET IT, MOVIE.

She puts Derek to sleep in his mom's bed, and lurks around the house until her boyfriend pops up and they are almost immediately disrobed for sex.  On Derek's bed.  No wonder he'd rather sleep with mom.

Lurky O'Lurkenson offers to break the window to Sarah's car so she can get in and get home, or give her a ride.  She accepts the ride and WHO ARE YOU!?  Seriously.

We get a lame explanation for why she ran from this guy she clearly knows and has feelings for.  Sarah says she was spooked and surprised.  No, the script called for a cheap fakeout.  That's all it was.

And surprise!  Did you figure it out?  He's Derek's dad.  Which...actually explains a lot.  The timing of his appearance is still convenient, but it does make a number of things make ...sense?  Are they allowed to do that?  They're still creepy, stalkery things, but they're clarified a bit now.

The scene is another surprising moment of character development, but pretty much ripped straight from a soapy drama, as they hash out why she didn't tell Noah about being pregnant, why she left, blah blah blah.  You know the story.  She loved him, but he had growing up to do, etc.

Noah declares his love for Sarah, his desire to be a good father, spend the rest of his life with her, and that he grew up a lot while he was in the army.  Whew, it's a good thing her real husband just died, paving the way for Noah to finally be the dad he always should have been!

Corner horse is watching you fornicate.

Ok...I am no prude, but the movie jumps back and forth between the teens having sex in Derek's room, to Noah being all over Sarah in the back of his jeep in the parking garage.  He is practically tearing her clothes off right then and there!  You just reconnected, at least find someplace comfortable and private!  Especially since her husband is barely in the ground.  So much for grieving.

And at last, this truly becomes a Deadly Night movie, as we see a Santa sneaking around, and it's Joe Petto!  But he's just delivering toys.  Right next to the people having sex.  That do not notice him at all.  Him watching while he works may be creepier than Noah's movie-long lurk session.

But they finally do notice the toys, some of which are ON THE BED WITH THEM.  Sure, Buck says they were distracted, but I am gonna whip out my third COME ON! for this movie.  That's pushing things.

Also, I could have done without seeing the toy hand crawling around and groping Buck's ass.  Squeezing the girl's chest while they do it though, is kinda hilarious.  Especially that neither of them notice it.

Even Derek is getting fed up with all the noise they're making, and is ready to break his silence and tell them to stop.  Actually, he just stands at the door, sees the hand crawling over Buck, and all the rest of the toys, and gives a great look of WTF, I am so out of this movie!

The toy snake that's been sitting wrapped around one of the bed posts finally slithers along, and before I can make a trouser snake joke, it ties up the girl's hands behind Buck.  Another of the toys armed with saw blades slices up Buck's foot, and that's when Mickey returns to the scene, and drops a sack over Derek's head.

Couldn't he have just grabbed him out of his bed?  Why did he have to wait for Derek to come out and play?  Why did he need all the toys?  Why did he even bother with the kids screwing anyways?  Why am I asking any of this?

But I didn't ask for a kid for Christmas.

Thankfully, the movie chooses to go back into awesome territory, as the couple is full on attacked by the toys.  Buck is being strangled by the arm that was feeling him up earlier.  The girl gets shot in the chest by a toy tank, and army men crawling across the floor shoot her as well.  It's death by a thousand mosuito bites.  It's over the top, it's bloody, it is perfect and exactly what I wanted for Christmas.

And it keeps getting better!  The bladed vehicle comes back for more Buck, pops some spikes, and jumps on his chest, stabbing him multiple times.  The girl gets blasted with a cannon, making her real cannon fodder, and a small vehicle shaped like a chomping face tries to go between her legs!

Instead of more gory fun, and I think the movie just blew its wad on the gore front, we see that Noah and Sarah are done their carobics. Noah asks what she knows about Joe Petto, and it's not much.  But Noah fills in the blanks about how Joe was arrested for maiming some kids, by some booby trapped toys.  All because his wife died in childbirth, and Petto decided if he couldn't have a happy family, no one would.

With all this information Noah is dropping, does that make him a Petto-phile?  BAM!

Sarah doesn't believe the story, but Noah seems to convince her, and why doesn't she remember the booby trapped skates?  This is actually a decent reveal, since the movie was playing up just who the toymaker was doing all this mischief, and they explain away earlier scenes of Noah being surrounded by toys by those being ones he bought to dissect and investigate.  And damn, he went and gave one away?  He had to have suspected it was deadly!  He knowingly contributed to the hotel manager's death!

They head back home to tell Derek he got a new daddy, and when they get there, the baby sitter's bloody remains jump onto the jeep's window.

Clean yer windshield, mister??

Both of them get out of the car to deal with the bloody mess that landed on them, and try to get the babysitter to speak coherently long enough to get the plot points.

She yells that the toys attacked them, and tell the parents that the old man from the toy store took Derek.  Noah needs clarification though, and asks if she means Joe Petto.  No, the OTHER old guy from the toy store that kills people with evil toys!!  Geeze.

Then we finally get to see the superhero figure whoosh out of the window after it's target, and everyone just barely gets out of the way before it hits them.  Instead it flies overhead and crashes into the trash cans behind them, exploding on impact.

GARBAGE DAY!!

And because there has been too much awesome, we now dip back into the stupid, as Sarah steals Noah's car.  She drives off to save her kid, rather than the sensible plan Noah has, calling the cops and letting them deal with it.  How does she even know he went back to the toy store?  Sure, he DID, but she wouldn't know that, other than the script told her.

Kim returns once more to remind us she's in this movie, and take care of the bloody girl, as well as call the cops.  Poor Kim gets all the dirty work while Noah chases cars on foot.

Sarah arrives at the toy store and bangs on every door she can find, yelling for Joe to give her back her son.  Then Noah makes his arrival and now it's his turn to yell and bang on doors.  Fortunately, he's not above breaking and entering, especially since he's done it before, and picks the front door's lock.

The pair spend about five minutes wandering the toy store in different areas, giving us a good feel for the place, and there is a LOT of creepiness around.  Dolls in cages, mannequins, paintings.  Nicely done, and not too long.  Maybe a bit much at the climax of the film, but overall acceptable.

Maybe he just ran out of thumbtacks.

Down in the basement, Noah finds Santa Petto with a water gun.  He gets sprayed in the face with its contents, and we don't really learn what it was, but it gets Noah to flail and fall into a pile of boxes, getting him out of the way.

While Noah is getting boxed in, Sarah grabs the knife that is stabbed to Derek's photo, another moment of intelligence, and follows Noah's yelps down into the basement.  But she  misses his body out cold in the corner.

Sarah manages to get through the door Noah found Joe behind, and rather than get a face full of bleach, or whatever, she finds a room full of hanging mannequins, and parts.  Because he's Gepetto, you see.

One of the figures slumps over with a bit too soft of a thud, and when Sarah clears some crap away, she sees Joe's face staring up at her with dead eyes.  She spins around to run, but is grabbed by...Joe?

It is truly something when you can pinpoint the precise moment a movie gets weird.

Wow.

Mickey Rooney just grabbed his ears and yanked his face off.  Revealing robotics underneath.  Then grabbing a Pino mask that gets SUCKED into place, and the eyes roll open as the new face is connected and activated.  That is awesome and creepy and scary ALL AT ONCE.

Sarah is rightly astonished and confused by all of that.  Pino explains it is all rather simple, and it only requires junk from around the basement.  Yes, advanced robotics that no one is capable of, done by an old man in his basement.  Sure.

Pino explains that Joe had a tendency to break his toy, but always fixed him, and Pino had enough of it.  So it was his turn to break his father, and make sure he would never hurt Pino again.

This is a much better face than Mickey Rooney's.

And somehow, the movie still gets weirder.

I knew they were called Joe Petto and Pino.  I knew the referrencing they were doing.  I even highly suspected that Pino was Not a Real Boy, but wow.  They really full on go there.

Pino tosses aside the top of his Santa costume, revealing what he really looks like underneath, his lack of being flesh and blood, and the effect is somewhere between awesome and laughable.  He's made up to look like a giant, humanoid doll.

I...I'm in awe.  I had no idea what I was in for.  This truly is the GREATEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER.

As if that wasn't enough, he then continues to strip, yanking off his pants, and yes.  He is as smooth as a Ken doll, or an angel.  This is that surrealistic visual design they were talking about, isn't it?

In the past five minutes, this movie has turned down WTF Boulevard, and drove straight up Yeahbuhwhat Drive, and stopped square in front of HOLY CRAP THIS IS AMAZING!

Joe can design an advanced robotic lifeform, but he can't give him his little puppet?

I am watching an evil robot mannequin doll person monologue his plans.  Seriously.  Who else gets to do this?

Right, right, there's plot going on here.  Joe's real son died, and so he made a new son.  But since he could never truly replace the dead child and wife, Joe was angry for his loss, and abusive to his creation.

And damnit movie, I do not accept "My father could make anything" as your justification for pulling this off.  He somehow made you in the 70s?  I call bullshit.  I don't know why I'm bothering, though.  That train left the station four movies ago.

It is also giggle-worthy that Sarah cannot take her eyes off of Pino's non-existant junk.

And finally, we learn it was Pino sending all the deadly toys to Derek, trying to kill him.  Because once Derek was dead, he could take his place as Sarah's son.

This is not how you treat your mother.

I have also witnessed a sexless manbot dry humping a woman saying he wants to be her son.  I...I got nothin' folks.  Silent Night, Deadly Night 5!  Thank you and good night!

Sarah manages to grab a screwdriver and jab it deep into the robot's skull, sending sparks everywhere, and sparing us even more Oedipal overtones.

Unfortunately, she jabbed him right in his moral and good acting circuits, sending Pino over what was left of the edge he was on and straight into pure botshit crazy.  He starts yelling and overacting, saying he is Sarah's son now.

He starts stabbing into all the red sacks Joe and him left hanging around, since he's also forgotten which one is holding Derek.  Well, eventually he'll stab the right one I guess.  Or he would, if Sarah didn't agree to let Pino be her son, in order to make him stop.

Heeeere's Johnny 5! Aaand that makes it the whole series.

Finally, he finds Derek, but the kid leaps out of the bag onto the Pinobot's back, fighting for his life.  And also finally, Derek at last says something, yelling for help.  Really?  After all this time of not talking, he breaks his silence by asking for the one thing we don't need to know?

Noah has woken up, found an axe, and broken into the workshop.  And I love that while Pino and the kid are spinning around, Derek kicks a hole in the door, and as if the spinning bot wasn't hilarious enough, you see this foot in the background wiggling through the hole.

Anyways, Noah eventually busts in, chops off Pino's arm, and then punches him in the face.  That has about as much effect as punching Ricky #2 in the face did.  Hey, I wonder if he was a robot?  That would explain a lot.

Once Pino is no longer caugt by surprise though, he throws Noah all over the workshop like his dad did to the puppet.  He's about to bring down Maxwell's silver hammer into Noah's skull, when Sarah gets the axe and slices the mannequin in half.

Mannequins have no user servicable parts inside. Opening them may void your warranty.

At least, for a change, there is good reason the killer isn't dead and still crawling along the ground.  Pino, a good son to the end, despite being a murderous psychobot, crawls over to his father, wanting to be with him in the end, where they belong, together.  Oh, if only his father wasn't dead BY HIS OWN HANDS!

You would think that was the end of it, when Pino's head goes thunk.  But even here, they need one last moment, as he grabs Sarah's leg when they try to leave.  He crawled back over to them real quick and quiet!  He's got the supervillain teleportation down cold.

But that's when Sarah crushes Pino's head under her heels, ending his threat once and for all.  And Derek, who now won't shut up, tells her not to be afraid, since it's just a toy.  Dude, that toy tried to stab you in the face not five minutes ago.  And killed your not-father with another toy.

Just a toy?  Still dangerous.

And so the series drags to a conclusion, with the reunited family running away from the horror show, and leaving me to see another mannequin get sparky eyes and cackle evilly.

The spiced eggnog must flow.

I cannot believe they went for one last tease like that.  They should have just let it be.  But why should this movie be any different from all the rest?

Why shouldn't I be in such pain?  These movie makers...  They're all so...so...

Naughty...

*grabs an axe and wanders off*

Punish...

AUTOPSY REPORT

Video: Not terrible looking, but it does look pretty blown out and cheap.  Typical quality for a direct to video movie, I guess.

Audio: Standard stereo faire.

First Blood: Tom kills himself with the fireplace poker six minutes into the movie.

Best Corpse: I gotta go with the motel owner. He goes through so much with that damned worm.  If the babysitter had died, her and Buck's deaths would be tops of the list.

Blood Type - B-: Some light blood, but they make up for it by pouring a bucket of the stuff over the babysitter.  And the effects are amazing, for the budget.

Sex Appeal: Lots of people take lots of clothes off.  You even have a nekkid puppetman.

Movie Review: Hmm.  This is...not terrible.  The last few movies have been decent stories.  Of course, anything after #2 would be a good story.  Anything after #2 HAS a story.  And this story is NOT boring like #3.  It is weird like #4, and in fact is weirder.  Oh man is it weirder.  It's an adequately made movie for what it is, but it is highly cheeseball, with a lot of stuff that makes no sense.  It has some high points for the series, but has some low points for moveimaking.  It all evens out to a nice three out of five Mickey Rooney masks.

Entertainment Value: Bad punny names.  Killer toys.  A roachworm with googly eyes sucking out eyeballs.  A giant living robot doll.  Naked.  Dry humping the woman he wants to adopt him.  After killing her son.  With plastic hair.  And a removable face.  A car trying to bite a woman in the crotch.  Attacking army men.

THIS MOVIE IS AWESOME ON TOAST.  It starts off pretty normally, which is saying something when 'normal' is set at 'Santa Ball choking a guy'.  It rumbles around on that normality for quite awhile, with a few spikes of weird to keep interest up, and then those last thirty minutes are pure, unadulterated insanity.  Oh my gods.  This truly is a Christmas treat.  It is so messed up, and it does not care at all.  It took the weirdness of witches in #4, and went balls to the wall with crazy shit.  AND made it have something to do with Christmas.  Those last ten minutes with Pino just...there truly are no words for how much awesome spins around here.  Five out of five living mannequin men.