After the horrible BETTER WATCH OUT! and INITIATION, to say I had no expectations for SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 5: THE TOY MAKER is an understatement. But, surprisingly enough, the fifth entry of the Christmas-themed franchise is actually a good amount of fun.It follows child Derek, who sees his father brutally murdered by a toy that mysteriously appeared on their front porch a few nights before Christmas. For some reason, the police do nothing about it, and Derek and his mother are left alone. But presents are still appearing on their porch, people are breaking into their house, and there's an ex-military man that follows them everywhere! What's going on? Does it have anything to do with the titular toy maker (played by Mickey Rooney!)? The film drags at times, and the acting isn't even bad enough to draw that many laughs. But where THE TOY MAKER shines is its inventive death scenes, which involve a bunch of killer toys. Obviously, PUPPET MASTER, DOLLS and the like have covered this territory before, but gruesome murder-set-pieces designed by Screaming Mad George keep this from being a complete waste of time. There's killer roller skates, army men and larvae, all of which are pretty damn fun.The whole thing looks like a TV movie, a lot of it is dull as dirt and we've seen the same plot myriads of times before, but there are enough awesome moments here (including a head-scratching ending featuring robot dry-humping) to justify a recommendation for trash fanatics. At the very least, it's a better waste of your time than SNDN 3 and 4.

The people behind these sequels certainly came up with some insane ideas once they moved away from the whole "killer Santa" routine. This last entry is co-written by director Martin Kitrosser and producer Brian Yuzna. If you recognize Kitrosser's name, that's because he'd co-written the third "Friday the 13th" movie several years previous, but has kept busy in the film business as a script supervisor, and is in fact Quentin Tarantino's script supervisor of choice. His movie is an amusing combination of the genuinely creepy and the genuinely kinky. Toys designed for a deadly purpose have been sent out for years, and killed the father of a traumatized and mute boy, Derek (William Thorne). His concerned mother Sarah (Jane Higginson) comes to suspect either drunken, seemingly kindly toy store proprietor Joe Petto (screen legend Mickey Rooney) or his weirdo son Pino (Brian Bremer, whom you may recognize from "Pumpkinhead", Yuzna's "Society", and / or "Spontaneous Combustion"). Meanwhile, a young man, Noah (Tracy Fraim) is awfully intent on making contact with Derek and Sarah, and what could be his reason? The best of these sequels since Part 2, in this reviewer's humble opinion, it benefits from being so utterly twisted. In fact, right towards the end it features what has to be one of the most disturbing attempted rape sequences committed to celluloid. The special effects are often of the cheesy and tacky variety, yet are reasonably entertaining for this reason. Kitrosser's focus on sex is pretty blatant: at one point he keeps cutting between two separate sex scenes. None too subtle references to a classic children's story are indicative of his whole approach to his movie. The acting is mostly competent enough, with the appropriately cast Bremer coming off the best. Rooney acts his little heart out, as could be expected; regarding his presence here when his was one of the voices demonizing the original movie, it just goes to show what an actor is willing to do when they're desperate enough for a gig. Neith Hunter and Conan Yuzna reprise their roles of Kim and Lonnie from the previous sequel; ubiquitous Clint Howard once again shows up, and plays a character named Ricky, but is only around for one scene. One thing this movie is not is boring, and if your tastes are anything like mine, you're sure to derive some entertainment out of this demented piece of work. Seven out of 10.

A young boy sees his father killed by a toy that was anonymously delivered to his house. After that, he is too traumatized to speak, and his mother must deal with both him and the loss of her husband. Meanwhile, a toy maker named Joe Peto builds some suspicious-looking toys, and a mysterious man creeps around both the toy store and the boy's house...but who is responsible for the killer toys? despite being a part five in a weak (With the exception of part four and this one) and dead end series, SNDN5 is a very good horror film that is lifted by a interesting premise and innovative special effects. the acting isn't too bad but rather unimaginative and the script is flat. Other than that, this film is almost perfect. After all, Brian Yuzna produced it. You know it's going to be a winner!!!!!!! 7/10.

This time we get a psycho toy maker named "Joe Petto" (seriously?) who makes living, evil toys that kill people. He goes after the family who has the bad luck of just simply living in the same house where he and his anatomically incorrect, robot son "Pino" used to live. Late in the film, Petto dies, and Pino even assumes his identity, in perhaps the most baffling twist in this twisted movie.Derivative entry in this semi-series, this one has a bizarre, pedophilic bent (Maybe that is why the character's name is Petto(phile?) which makes it difficult to watch.It's kind of like a low rent hybrid of "Halloween III", "Puppet Master", and "Demonic Toys". In fact, they should have just titled this "Halloween III, Part 2", instead of copying Silent Night Deadly Night 4's amazingly generic, spiralling title card.