Demonic Toys: Personal Demons (2010)

DEMONIC TOYS 2 is a massively lacklustre B-movie sequel from Full Moon Pictures. It was shot in Italy as a belated sequel to the original movie, but it makes even the Full Moon flicks of the 1990s look good by comparison. The story is hackneyed and long-winded, involving a bunch of random and boring bad actors assembling in an old castle, where once again they're stalked and slashed by a bunch of rather uninteresting living dolls. The production values are rock bottom here and the calibre of the effects is reminiscent of the 1980s, except not as good. Give it a miss.

Arriving at an ancient Italian castle, a professor and his staff attempting to document the findings with a group of antiquities experts finds they have released a series of dolls possessed by an evil, demonic energy and must race to find a way out alive.This here was a decent enough if slightly flawed effort. One of the main elements going for this one is the fact that there's quite a large amount of Gothic atmosphere found here in the main location as this one really lets the castle location come through quite nicely. This features all the usual grand set-pieces and designs that come about here through the location taking place here, from the scenes of them wandering about the castle going for the various rooms and settings featured here while taking full advantage of material that can be attempted here with the elaborate, ornate decorations, candelabra- lit rooms, secret passageways and much more that makes this one quite a bit more fun than it really should be putting the Gothic set-pieces into the hunting grounds for the toys. With the discovery of the different rooms featured within here, especially the torture chamber and the exorcism vault that are found here, they make for a great place here which gives the dolls a spectacular place to hunt, generating the great stalking scenes in the basement where they take out the cheating couple or in the big bedroom against the one unaware loner who gets tormented beforehand with all the various sights and sounds of them appearing before the final kill which is quite impressive and enjoyable. Once they finally reveal themselves here which comes at the end of the big seance sequence which itself is a fantastic highlight offering with the flashing lights, demonic voices and the overall resolution of the main plot line being revealed to them, this one readily picks up the action and becomes a thrilling, suspenseful series of chasing through the bowels of the castle trying to fight them off in order to get away which makes for a fine finish here. These here make this one quite fun and enjoyable, though it does have a few quite detrimental issues. The main one here is the fact that the film's rather long periods of time here without the dolls being a part of the film, letting the exploration of the castle and their eccentricities take over the large portion of time here in the first half so they don't get really unleashed to knock people off until the later half. That it all for the better here, with the doll effects being quite substandard and really silly looking, barely featuring enough here to look like they're committing the crimes and just making it very obvious they're dolls. It's the biggest thing that holds this one back, alongside the bland pacing.Rated R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

Having seen movies like the "Puppet Master" series and "Doll Graveyard", I had little expectations to this movie, but I must say that I was disappointed."Demonic Toys 2" does not really manage to get up to the level of the previous work that Charles Band have made. There is just something about this movie that makes it impossible to really get into the groove of the movie.Perhaps it is the thin storyline or the effects. Or it could be the lack of new thinking to this movie.Now, the good parts of "Demonic Toys 2" were the characters in the movie. There was a variety of interesting characters, that sadly were not given enough time (or chance) to fully shine through on the screen. The actors and actresses portraying them did a fairly good job.The dolls were cool to look at, if you can overcome the fake way of their movements and the way they kill people. There is something very grimy and gritty to the dolls, and it works well. It gives them a dark and sinister appearance. Well, I have always liked the dolls in Band's movies.The effects were below average, and most often hilarious to look at.If Band went for the early 90's feel to this movie intentionally, then hats off to him, then he really managed to pull it off. This whole movie reeks of early 90's horror movies. From the way it was shot, to the storyline (or lack thereof), to the dialogue and to the location in which it was shot (you just got to love the purple sky).The movie just didn't really appeal that much to me. There was something important lacking from it, and I think this movie might actually have been scary (or somewhat scary) had it been released in the late 80's or early 90's.If you are a fan of the "Puppet Master" series and such similar movies, you should sit down to watch this one, but do not go into this experience with high expectations

I'm a big Full Moon fan! I loved just about everything Band put out in the 90's ..especially Demonic Toys. Don't get me wrong I hold a very special place in my heart for the Puppet Master series, but I've always felt that Demonic Toys just had that edgy, risky, guilty pleasure feel to it. This particular installment to the series, which I could not wait to see, simply enough falls short of its predecessor in a number of ways...I mean I could pick at a movie's flaws all day, but being a hard core fan of the original I'll try to be brief...There are some people out there that say the story line was a little weak, but I'm not going to judge a low budget horror film sequel too hard...I mean it's called "Demonic Toys 2" ..I can only hope that you rent this movie knowing that it's not going to be up for any awards. A bigger problem I had with the movie was that it didn't really try to be unique away from the original...they only play the theme song from the original about every second of the movie and it just gets ruined and annoying. The acting in the movie is OK...the characters themselves leave a little more to be desired. There is a lot of computer generated blood which really detracts from the movie.....the first movie had blood, guts, and eye balls out the yin yang....just get some corn syrup and goop it up 90's style. My biggest complaint about this movie is the puppets. The baby doll and jack attack are all well and good, but what about Mr. Static and Grizzly??? Fans would have gone even more crazy about this movie if they were included. No...instead we're given some new old toy called Divoletto...and in my opinion he really does nothing in this movie. I did find it to be entertaining, but that might be me being bias because I love the demonic toys. This could have been a great addition to the franchise, but it just tried to sell off of the success and popularity of the original. What a shame...all it needed was a few more puppets ...a couple gallons of blood ...and a little more care.