Phubbs
Posts: 660
Joined: 3/4/2012
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Dollman (1991)
There is something about this B-movie that I like, its hard to pinpoint as the film is so ridiculous and belongs in a cartoon realm, I guess its the quaint 'Twilight Zone' charm of the plot and the cheesy yet fun effects mixed with some great hammy acting.
Pyun regular Thomerson gives his best 'Dirty Harry' performance here as 'Brick Bardo' (great name  ) complete with silly shades and a long trench coat, his gritty strong voice barking out silly dialog left right n centre to the wonderfully cliched baddies and gang members lead by a young over acting JE Haley.
This film does seem to have a cult following (nowadays, apon release no) and its easy to see why as its highly enjoyable through its highly nonsensical premise, classic lead character and brilliantly bad effects, Pyun's best film along side 'Cyborg' for sure which I'm sure came as a shock to him.
Demonic Toys (1991)
Yes its totally stupid and not in the least bit scary, I dunno why its referred to as a horror, but this cult is highly enjoyable with its basic charming effects. Of course its ridiculous and has a high trash content with strong levels of cheese but with a film about killer dolls what do you expect, its much more of a light hearted horror/comedy.
The main swing here is the dolls of course, a killer teddy bear, a baby doll, a robot and a jack in the box, all of which actually look kinda cool, not scary more eerie and bizarre, think killers Muppets haha. The sequences where the dolls attack are pretty amusing and the highlight of the film, with their limited movements and funny voice work its hard not to enjoy despite how silly it is watching a grown adult thrash around as he's being attacked by a psychotic Fozzie the Bear lol!
The whole concept is hard to pull off but its an interesting one with toys coming alive, much like 'Toy story' and 'The Twilight Zone' its a fun route to explore, plus the dolls are always well designed and made with obvious care and attention.
Demonic Toys 2 (2009)
Seeing as this was made recently it makes it hard to accept the crapness involved as these type of films tend to work better knowing they were made back in the 80/90's but despite that its still a reasonable horror with fun doll mania.
The plot is pretty much the same as all the killer doll films previously accept with a different setting but the effects are slightly better or alittle more technically advanced than the rest. The dolls still look good but we're missing 'Mr Static' and 'Grizzly' and instead have 'Divoletto' which is a devil looking doll, nice design and very 'Puppet Master' but he doesn't do too much.
Nice setting and the usual kills accompanied with some rather poor acting but we all know what we're getting here, not as good/classic as the first but its still solid if you have a doll fetish 
Dollman vs. Demonic Toys (1993)
Suppose to have been the first 'vs.' film made so really this film is a groundbreaker if we are honest about it. Its a very silly premise of course and the back story behind it is muddled, basically this is the sequel to 'Bad Channels' 'Dollman' and 'Demonic Toys' all at once which in itself is pretty impressive and unique but alas they screwed up the continuity badly by making 'Nurse Ginger' as the sidekick from 'Bad Channels' when it should of been 'Bunny'.
That aside this is actually good fun and continues the cult craziness of the previous films with the added bonus of Thomerson back as Dollman. Most of the film is filled with flashbacks unfortunately which does take up time and seeing as the film is one hour!! you can tell they struggled to fill out the plot.
Effects wise its about on par with the other films accept this time we have lifesize Demonic Toys going up against 'Brick' which don't look too bad really, the fact they are real or stop motion makes all the difference which would be lost using cgi, almost modern day Harryhausen films...almost
Blood Dolls (1999)
Yes I can't believe it either but Band still somehow manages to make yet more killer doll flicks without anyone saying...'hey, haven't we done this before?'. This doll flick is pretty much the same as 'Puppet Master' accept the dolls are much more detailed, extreme looking, twisted and bizarre but also really decent looking too.
The whole film is kinda off the wall or more like a twisted fairytale as the dolls are controlled by a villain with a normal human body but he has a shrunken head (think 'Beetlejuice') that actually looks good I must admit. His main henchman is a human version of 'Jack Attack' from 'Demonic Toys'...basically a big guy with clown face paint on which was alittle disturbing I guess, all this and a sexy girl rock band imprisoned in a large cage for his amusement haha sweet.
The plot is..again..a bad guy using the dolls to kill for his own evil plans, afew different plot twists here and there buts its the usual thing really, not much else that can be done I guess, to be frank its just a chance to do a puppet film with a new fun set of killer dolls really, much like 'Doll Graveyard'.
Its competent and solid as a doll horror, doesn't look cheap n nasty and the characters are good fun.
Dolls (1987)
Yep found another doll film but this time from Bands Empire film company and not directed by the man himself. Surprisingly this doll flick is different from all the rest with its plot, this time its very much like a fairytale or even a Stephen King story. An old couple that make dolls in a big mansion in the middle of nowhere take in lost or stranded folk and shrink them down turning them into dolls depending on the persons character, if they're good or bad.
So a slightly different spin with this film which is nice and gives it a fresher feel, the dolls are not weird looking killers either they are just normal looking old fashioned toy dolls from various times, almost 'Pinocchio' in design, style and feel.
Cast is good in this too with the old couple being especially well performed, no one really well known but they all play their parts well enough too make the film seem better than it maybe should be, infact the whole film looks good with decent well lit sets, dark hallways, plenty of shadows and the classic thunder and lightning all giving the right atmospheric glow.
Not scary but more of a 'Scooby Doo' creepy feel to it which is just right as its obviously hard to make killer dolls come across as genuinely scary.
Doll Graveyard (2005)
This is probably one of Bands best films to date although not exactly an original concept but its pretty well made and directed coming across as a sensible thriller. Again we have killer dolls on the loose but much like 'Puppet Master' they do look really good and have been well designed and made, I especially liked the samurai and German dolls.
Its very very predictable with nothing new to bring to the forum but simply if you like these types of horrors then you will certainly enjoy, by now Band is pretty much an expert at shooting dolls so this is quite good and not just trashy cheap stuff, just don't expect top class acting or thrills. Nice film title
Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983)
How about that for a film title huh, talk about getting you hyped for a sci-fi fantasy guns and swords type action flick with monsters, princesses and possibly even spaceships and landspeeder type vehicles, well yes that's what I was thinking after seeing the poster haha I was thinking along the lines of 'Krull'.
I must report that the film isn't quite how I thought it would be, yep its a sci-fi and yes it has laser guns, landspeeders and the odd monster but its terribly cheap looking in places with virtually no plot. Now I know I shouldn't expect anything amazing from an unknown film but you always hope there is a hidden gem don't you, on the plus side there is some nice imagination here mixed with allot of elements from other obvious sci-fi. The big one eyed humanoid aliens were made up quite well and did remind me of 'Klingons' whilst all the outfits were your typical 'Mad Max' affair, especially the vehicles and the heroes leather outfit, there was a touch of 'Krull' type magic involved and of course your regular mutant baddie warrior.
I shouldn't be too harsh really as it was made along time ago when certain big films were the rage and this was merely jumping on that bandwagon, in fairness its not too bad, not good but certainly one of the better cheapo fantasy sci-fi films from the depths of the B-movie abyss.
Zone Troopers (1985)
More B-movie fluff for Tim Thomerson to revel in haha this time hes behind enemy lines in WWII but his squad gets wiped out and on top of that he must content with an alien that has crashed its ship in the area.
Excellent film title which really gives you high hopes for a rockin flick and to a degree you do get a pretty decent action film with lots of gun action and Nazi blasting. The first half of the film isn't too bad and along the lines of the 'Dirty Dozen' minus the better acting skills and top cast of course, as the alien comes into the plot the film still manages to hold its own but towards the end of the story we meet more aliens which look suspiciously like humans with white hair in rather campy outfits.
This is where things start to get abit 'Flash Gordon' looking with crappy ray guns, bad outfits and a dodgy looking spacecraft, shame really as the first crashed spaceship looked quite good and the stranded alien actually had a decent mask and look not far from something you might see in the 'Mos Eisley space cantina' in Star Wars (the aliens we meet towards the end are male and different from the stranded alien which is female).
Very basic but fairly fun and amusing how no one ever seems to be that shocked to find visitors from outer space.
Robot Jox (1990)
Some epic robot/mecha fighting going on here with some epic stop motion effects hehe well sort of, its certainly very dated and looks more like an episode of 'Red Dwarf' than a film but its so gloriously tacky and fun.
A Band production (he does churn them out) which does seem to bare a small similarity to the recent 'Reel Steel' but admittedly is more of a mech film. Basically trained fighters combat in massive mechs for control of certain parts of the world which hold value but the fighters are part of a 'Formula 1' type team. Its chock full of silly sci-fi and wonderfully cheesy effects and bluescreen, some of which looks OK some of which looks nasty, but one things for sure the cast do their best to make it seem serious *chuckle*.
Its very easy going stuff and perfect for those sci-fi hounds out there that love a good B-movie and I'm sure we all know of Mr Band's work. Goodies wear white and are team America where as the baddies wear black and are naughty evil team Russia (boo! hiss!) 'crash n burn'.
Robot Jox 2: Robot Wars (1993)
Yes this is another big mech film which seems to be another second sequel, unofficial, to the original 'Robot Jox'. The Band brothers are at it again with their lovely tacky films but somehow manage to make them kinda good at the same time, this is normally down to the stop motion robot action which is great fun.
B-movie of course but lets be honest here, its just an excuse for more robot wars and not much else really, this time we have the original classic mech against a scorpion type mech. The whole film is again pointless with a thin plot but the over the top acting and shaky robot effects are just so fun to watch, love the constant multiple button/switch pushing by the robot pilots lol. This film is much better than the other sequel 'Crash and Burn', its like the original with plenty of robot hocus pocus.
Crash and Burn (1990)
Sequel of sorts to 'Robot Jox' with the same cover art yet the plot is nothing to do with the original, in fact the plot has nothing to do with anything much haha. Basically its about a group of folks stuck in a big warehouse/power plant because of a thermal storm outside, to make things worse one of them is a 'synth' out to kill everyone for the evil companies gain (Unicom).
So...you have a group of people stuck in a building being killed by a Terminator style robot and no one knows who the killer robot is, not too original huh. Its pretty pointless really with bad acting plus nothing happens! the only thing to mention is the gloriously cheesy stop motion mech action near the end. This franchise is all about the big mechs but amazingly this film lacks mech action despite the cover art depiction.
Bad Channels (1992)
Probably one of Bands cheapest looking and oddest flicks, if that's possible, and certainly in the B-movie realm. No real sense behind the plot other than aliens trying to capture human females for some reason, this all takes place in a radio station with allot of cheap looking effects and hammy alien suits. Its not too predictable as its pretty off the wall with at least two music/band sequences in the film which make the whole thing seem like something of MTV, its very dumb but it does have a certain charm to it plus its the prequel to 'Dollman Vs Demonic Toys' and has a very short sequence after the end credits with Tim Thomerson as 'Dollman'
Evil Bong (2007)
Charles Band continues with his Full Moon movies of which some are cult classics and quite good where as this is unfortunately not too good. I mean really....its about an evil haunted bong that kills people when they get high from puffing on it, but do they die? not overly sure if they do according to the end but does it really matter?
Unsure how Band got this made really haha nothing here to recommend unless you like a tiny show of soft porn in the form of boobies, not too much I might add. On another note its nice to see tiny cameos from other Full Moon movie characters such as 'Jack Deth' 'Gingerbread Man' 'Ooga Booga' 'Ivan Burroughs' and 'Jack Attack', totally pointless but I always liked how Band films are all linked together..sort of.
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