It's not one, not two, but three sequels in one. Full Moon Entertainment shows marketing savvy with this schlocky shocker calculated to keep its past titles active on video store shelves. But it also proves that marketing savvy doesn't necessarily equal good moviemaking.
After scampering off into the sunset at the end of DOLLMAN, 13-inch-tall outer-space cop Brick Bardo (Tim TRANCERS Thomerson) feels isolated and alone. Reading in newspapers the saga of Nurse Ginger (Melissa Behr), shrunken to 11 inches by space aliens in BAD CHANNELS, Bardo seeks her out in her
hometown of Pahoota, California. Unable to find a way down, Ginger has been living on her kitchen counter, helpless against a sleazy media type who strolls by occasionally to videotape her through her kitchen window, or common household pests, like a spider Bardo kills just as it's about to eat
her. Meanwhile, undercover cop Judith Grey (Tracy Scoggins), suspended in the wake of her exploits in DEMONIC TOYS, obsessively stakes out the Toyland warehouse, guarding against a return of the murderous playthings that caused her so much grief. (Grey's unborn infant was what the toys were after
in the first film, but no mention is made of her pregnancy in the sequel.)
Grey follows a wino who breaks into the warehouse for warmth and finds that he has been accidentally killed, and his blood has brought the demon toys back to life. The returnees from the first film--Baby Oopsie-Woopsie, the killer space robot and the jack-in-the-box creature--along with a new
Rambo-like killer action figure, escape into the warehouse vent system. Not believing her story, Grey's superiors order her to serve out her suspension quietly. Instead, she also seeks out Ginger. After barging in on her and Bardo during an intimate moment, Grey recruits them to flush the toys out
of the vents. Grey is killed, however, leaving the diminutive duo alone to face the menace and fend off Oopsie-Woopsie's lecherous designs on Ginger. With the help of Bardo's super-charged space pistol, they blast the stuffings out of the toys and flag a cab back to Pahoota.
The ideas behind DOLLMAN VS. DEMONIC TOYS actually aren't bad ones. They're just poorly executed. A better script might have found a more economical way to fill in the main backstories than the extended flashbacks that eat up the running time here. Better direction might have kept the action
moving faster and more engagingly. As it is, the flashbacks are a bore, probably doubly so to Full Moon fans familiar with the earlier films. Because of the flashbacks, the main plot is anemic, giving little development to the relationship between Bardo, Ginger, and Judith and almost none of the
plot twists and surprises on which genre movies generally thrive. Though to a lesser extent than the first film, DOLLMAN still suffers from generating too much character jeopardy from character stupidity. They may be killer toys, but they're still just toys. If Grey had brought a Louisville
Slugger with her to the warehouse, she might be alive today. Better direction could have smoothed over plot gaps by pumping up the action adrenaline. Instead, DOLLMAN moves sluggishly and predictably, drawing attention to its penny-pinched, unconvincing special effects that render the killer toys
not nearly as menacing as they're meant to be. Ironically, the cast is pretty good. Scoggins is vastly improved since her first outing as Grey. Deftly mixing derring-do with a quick comic wit, Thomerson is always fun to watch, and Behr is a likable, feisty, classic B-movie cutie. But their efforts
aren't enough to stifle yawns through this wan triple-sequel. (Profanity, violence, sexual situations.) leave a comment
