“Derek, I know you’re angry and you’re scared, and you have every right to be 一 but you also have to remember that you’re not alone,” consoles Sarah later that morning. Toys only represent the greatest horror of his young life, and even a Christmas commercial jingle, hocking the exact toy that killed Tom, triggers him. Derek barricades himself from the world, as much as he does from the land of make believe. “On top of everything, he won’t go into his room now,” she expresses to her best friend Kim ( Neith Hunter), noting how he hasn’t spoken a word since the accident. Two weeks later, Derek’s mother Sarah ( Jane Higginson) laments that he still hasn’t recovered. I was also terrified of Sid and his mangled playthings in 1994’s Toy Story, so what do I know. But these horror stories work because it banks hard into one of the greatest fears I had as a kid, and probably most people did: bloodthirsty toys wrecking utter bedlam. As a franchise, Silent Night, Deadly Night relied on the audience’s willingness to suspend their disbelief to the same level you would for the Child’s Play and Puppet Master movies.
This opening scene primes the viewer for a wonderful level of camp the set-ups are typically ridiculous, but Kitrosser dexterously walks a fine line between serious and goofy. It’s certainly, unequivocally etched into his memory, no doubt. In a tussle to break free, Tom stumbles and impales himself on a fireplace poker 一 and poor Derek, hidden on the stairs, bears witness to it all. The tinker toy plays the sweetest of melodies before morphing into a devilish creature with sharp fangs and go-go Inspector Gadget rubber arms, which latch onto Tom’s face, seemingly sucking the life from him. When he tears away the glistening holiday paper, he finds a musical orb inside, its bright red curves not unlike that of Santa Claus himself. His curiosity to know what’s inside the package gets the better of him, of course. His stepfather Tom ( Van Quattro) lashes out, demonstrating his own harbored fears, and orders him upstairs to bed. Too naïve for his own good, an angel-faced boy named Derek ( William Thorne) answers and discovers a perfectly wrapped package on the front steps. It’s Christmas Eve, and there’s a knock at the door. In adulthood, I have come to appreciate the dysfunctional, splintered household, something I also experienced, and how one boy’s imagination is completely destroyed after witnessing the murder of his step-father. Naturally, as a then-five-year-old kid, I was far more hooked into the grisly violence when toys, seemingly innocent inanimate objects, came to life and killed. Kitrosser weaves themes of abuse and hunger for love into the fabric of the story through the use of the absolute fantastic as a framework. Issued on VHS in late 1991, The Toymaker, the screenplay for which was penned by Kitrosser and Brian Yuzna (the man behind Society, Bride of Re-Animator, The Dentist, and a slew of other schlocky ‘90s horror gems), adapts the magical Pinocchio fable into a perverse tale about childhood trauma.
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It’s certainly hard to imagine the fifth installment in any B-movie franchise having much to offer, but director Martin Kitrosser’s The Toymaker injected the series with a pinch of whimsy, a few drops of absurdity, and a whole fistful of mayhem that is just as terrifying today. It’s like a frigid winter chill you simply can’t shake, or that ominous sensation that descends at nightfall and seems to rattle among the shadows on your wall.
When I think back to my childhood, it’s films like Tourist Trap, Poltergeist, and even Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker that left deep impressions. Whether your blood ran cold from the macabre family dinner in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre or you found yourself disturbed and nauseous while watching Regan’s head spin in The Exorcist, these terrible frights became the catalyst for a lifetime of loving horror.
We all have those horror movies that scarred us for life.