Ruptured Review: Demonic Toys

Country of origin- USA   
Year of release- 1992  

Director- Peter Manoogian                                         

Stars- Tracy Scoggins, Bentley Mitchum, Daniel Cerny

The film follows Judith Gray (played by Tracy Scoggins) an undercover cop who after a botched bust of a couple of arms dealers finds herself trapped in a semi derelict toy warehouse with one of the criminals in cuffs. It soon becomes clear that this is no ordinary warehouse, as the death of one of the arms dealer’s accidently results in the raising of a demon with the power to bring toys to life as his personal minions. I should point out however, this is not his sole power, because frankly if it was, who would really give a shit. The rather pissed off demon is searching for a body to inhabit so he can increase his powers and once again have a physical form, and it just so happens that Judith is pregnant with the ideal host. 
 

You would think by now, I would have learned my lesson when it comes to films made by Charles Band’s Full Moon Features, but apparently that just isn’t the case. Yet again I found myself watching a Charles Band film and thinking to myself ‘why am I doing this?’ it’s as though I suddenly expect that a film called Demonic Toys made the company that has brought us so many cinematic turds (such as Evil Bong 3D) would be anything other than painful to sit through.

The entire film feels as though it is the prologue to a different story, at no point are we given context, background or even a reason to care about the characters even slightly. The films throws you in the deep end of bullshit and then when it tries to explain itself it’s like being thrown a life raft made of led while drowning the aforementioned bullshit. Every attempt this films makes to do anything other than show off its fairly decent practical effects fails harder than a silent film festival for the blind. I do have to be fair however, this films does feature some pretty damn fun practical effects in the form of the possessed toys, and it also features more blood and gore than we usually get in a Full Moon film. However this are not enough to distract the viewer from the woeful plot, acting and attempts at dialogue and worst of all, humour.

If you are (as apparently I am) a fan of being mentally tormented for 83 minutes then definitely check out this film, it will reduce you to a sleepy exhausted wreck, and the only way to restore yourself will be a stiff Gin. That’s right folks, this films drove me to drink. I can in no good conscience give this pile of sewage a positive rating, but I must stress that the effects are pretty enjoyable, so maybe just fast forward to those parts. Demonic Toys gets 3.5/10 from me, it’s the cinematic equivalent of waiting room filled with annoying children.                             

           

Ruptured Review: Zombie Holocaust (aka Doctor Butcher, M.D)

Country of origin- Italy   

Year of release- 198o  

Director- Marino Girolami (as Frank Martin)                                         

Stars- Ian McCulloch, Alexandra Delli Colli, Sherry Buchanan  

The film begins in New York where body parts are beginning to go missing, and corpses are being mutilated in a hospital. Eventually a morgue assistant is caught red handed (don’t excuse the pun) snacking on one of the poor unfortunate stiffs. After cutting the corpses heart out, the cannibal employee is chased and eventually throws himself to his death out of the window, making sure to turn into a stunt mannequin on the way down of course, as no cannibal morgue assistants were harmed in the making of this film. After this bizarre incident the hospitals resident sexy anthropologist Lori Ridgeway (played by Alexandra Delli Colli, who would later go on to play a role in The New York Ripper) recognizes the cannibalism and mutilation as a custom of a tribe in the Moluccas Island. An expedition is then organised by Dr. Peter Chandler (played by the charming Ian McCulloch of Zombie Flesh Eaters fame) to track down this tribe and discover why their cannibalistic rituals have found there way to New York.

Once the expedition arrives on the island the group quickly realise they have bitten off more than they can chew, unlike the hungry cannibals and shambling clay faced zombies that are hunting them through the jungle. Eventually the group find an insane, and extremely sweaty, surgeon who is performing horrific experiments and using his army of zombies to bring him fresh subjects, and it looks like he is need of something fresh to put on his butchers slab, much to the dismay of the expedition.

I may as well get this out of the way right off the bat, I fucking love this film! This was one of the first Italian horror films of the grindhouse period I ever watched, and it is one of the reasons I fell in love with Euro horror. Despite Zombie Holocaust being a cash in on the huge success of both Zombie Flesh Eaters and Cannibal Holocaust it still stands up as a grimy little piece of gore soaked magic, in my mind at least.

The film features the typical array of cheap camera work and lighting that leaves a lot to be desired, often poor dubbing coupled with moments of very wooden acting along with a plot with more holes that Swiss cheese a firing range. But these are actually some of the reasons I like this film so much, despite having all these typically Italian problems it manages to deliver a charmingly crap array of exploitation and cheap but effectively unpleasant gore. Top that off with the brilliant Ian McCulloch blowing the living shit out of cannibals while his men get gutted and have their eyes torn out all around him and you have the majestic cluster fuck of so-bad-its-good charm and nasty gore that is Zombie Holocaust. If you are at all a fan of low budget cannibal or zombie exploitation, or even just grime filled Euro gore flicks then this is a must, a confusing must, but still a must. I am going to give this one a hearty 8.5/10 it is essentially and often over looked viewing and considering it has been released on Blu-ray by 88 Films you have no excuse not to.