TOYS OF TERROR (2020)

Studio:      Warner Bros.
Director:    Nicholas Verso
Writer:      Dana Gould
Producer:  Devan Towers
Stars:     Dayo Ade, Zoe Fish, Kyana Teresa, Georgia Waters

Review Score:

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Summary:

Cursed toys terrorize a family celebrating Christmas in a former children’s hospital with a haunting history.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Distraught by the death of her 10-year-old son Jason at Saint Germaine Children’s Clinic, Helen Modig curses a trunk of toys and leaves it on the building’s doorstep. All of the other children at the clinic are found dead on Christmas morning.

Some time later, house flipper Hannah Cashman purchases the mountainside property to renovate into a home with her longtime contractor Emmett. Hannah also uses the opportunity to spend Christmas at the former clinic with her husband David, David’s 15-year-old daughter Alicia, Hannah’s young kids Zoe and Franklin, and the children’s nanny Rose.

The kids find the trunk of toys. Zoe takes possession of a stuffed animal bee. Franklin dons a raptor helmet with a microphone that alters his voice. Other toys include an RC car, a Twisted Talker, action figures, and an Uncle Monkey doll.

Zoe and Franklin begin behaving strangely. Alicia and Rose separately have fleeting encounters with a little boy’s ghost.

Alicia passes time by playing a retro videogame titled ‘Survive or Don’t.’ Alicia chokes on a handful of popcorn containing a spider. The RC car leads Franklin to Alicia’s room. Franklin merely stands there watching his stepsister struggle to breathe. Rose rushes in to save Alicia with the Heimlich maneuver. The game screen strangely reflects what just took place in the room.

Still traumatized by a past miscarriage, Rose has a nightmare involving the clinic’s dead children and a disfigured doll in a crib. Upon waking, Rose instinctively confiscates the toys. The dragon action figure briefly attacks Rose, although she does not see exactly what it was.

Rose and Alicia discuss their encounters with the ghost boy. Alicia’s limited research reveals something horrible happened at the clinic, but Hannah refuses to disclose details until later.

Zoe and Franklin continue acting strangely. They take the trunk up to the attic where the toys come to life with a song.

Hannah and Alicia rush to the attic, which is supposed to be off limits for safety reasons, when they hear a commotion. Hannah and Alicia both fall through the floor and become momentarily trapped, but survive. Hannah disciplines Zoe and Franklin for their disobedience, but they refuse to speak.

On Christmas Eve, noises from the bee toy lure Emmett to the attic. Emmett falls through the floor and becomes impaled on broken wood. At the same time, something similar happens in Alicia’s videogame.

David braves a snowstorm to rush Emmett to a hospital. The bee causes David to crash his vehicle.

The toys rouse Zoe and Franklin. The toys then tear up the living room while compelling the kids to smash gifts. Zoe and Franklin blame the toys for the mischief when Hannah interrupts.

Hannah tries to burn Uncle Monkey in the fireplace. Uncle Monkey comes to life and starts a fire in the living room.

Sentient Christmas tree decorations attack Hannah. Alicia rescues her stepmother by bashing the decorations with a bat.

The toys lead Zoe and Franklin to the attic where they talk the siblings into jumping out the window so they can join the other children. Hannah, Alicia, and Rose rush upstairs to the crumbling room. Hannah stops Zoe and Franklin from jumping. Rose helps Alicia trap the toys back in the trunk. However, Uncle Monkey stabs Rose repeatedly until she falls to her death.

David recovers from the crash and returns. The five family members burn the toy trunk before leaving the house. Rose becomes the kindly ghost caretaker of the dead children.

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Review:

When I first saw the film’s preview photos, which featured a goofily growling stuffed monkey wearing a fez, I figured “Toys of Terror” would be another tongue-in-cheek fright flick angled around cartoonish carnage. B-movies about killer/cursed dolls inherently lean into comedy, although not always intentionally. Filmmakers rightly recognize it’s hard to take tiny tottering toys seriously no matter how much their fanged mouths snarl. That’s why, at least among cheap DTV indies that can’t craft something truly sinister anyway, we often end up with dorky dolls quipping in Chipmunk voices. Why not make the entire movie as deliriously silly as the setup?

I also assumed having Dana Gould as its writer would put a generous spoonful of humor in “Toys of Terror’s” horror. While Gould sneaks in some casual cracks characteristic of a longtime comedian whose work includes ‘The Simpsons,’ “Toys of Terror” actually isn’t the robust romp it looks like on the outside. The toys do take time out for a bizarre song and dance routine. Little jokes worm in like when previously married parents wonder about their stepfamily’s mixed makeup, “How did The Bradys make this look so easy?” Other than that though, “Toys of Terror” largely shoots straight, with none of the humans behaving like they’re in anything other than a semi-serious scary movie.

This unanticipated style switcheroo turns out to be a relief. I’ve swallowed more than my fair share of grinning gremlins wreaking holiday havoc, and I’m not exclusively talking about Joe Dante. No one needs another film full of wobbly puppets giggling in high-pitched voices while people bug out their eyes and flail arms in fright. “Toys of Terror” goes a more grounded route and I can definitely dig that.

Unfortunately, that’s the only thing sticking out as a net positive since everything else is unremarkable. The film feels like someone mistakenly delivered a practice script from an old ‘Basic Horror Screenwriting’ seminar and it was accidentally made into a movie. I honestly don’t mean that to be insulting. “Toys of Terror” just plays plainly, so I’m surprised to see a project from Dana Gould and director Nicholas Verso, whose previous feature “Boys in the Trees” (review here) was a terrific debut, have such a blah personality.

Hannah is a go-getter working mom, talking on her earpiece about feverishly flipping properties while simultaneously managing small children Zoe and Franklin. Her calmer husband David has his hands full with teenage daughter Alicia. Hannah’s kids at least have their nanny to help them behave. David has only himself to deal with Alicia’s angst about spending Christmas in a hospital-turned-house with her stepsiblings instead of in Bora Bora with her birth mother. (There’s also a contractor renovating the converted children’s clinic since the nanny only equals one adult body to drop.)

A quick prologue depicts a vengeful mother who cursed a trunk full of toys because she blamed the old clinic for her young son’s death. Why she wanted to murder other children instead of the staff, I couldn’t tell you. “Toys of Terror” can’t either. This cursorily cryptic bit of backstory is all there is to explain how haunted hijinks get into gear.

Hannah’s kids of course find the trunk of toys. Zoe gravitates towards a plush bee. Franklin dons a dino helmet with a microphone that alters his voice. Alicia even discovers an Atari-like console containing an unusual retro videogame.

There’s also ‘Uncle Monkey,’ some Dollar Store He-Man figures, a plastic RC car, and a knockoff Speak & Spell. As expected, every item takes its turn coming to life to cause trouble for the family. Most of them do so in stop-motion animation so janky, you and the person next to you on the couch will become mirror images as you turn to each other with one raised eyebrow, especially during the spontaneous musical number.

Despite a bargain budget, “Toys of Terror” still shakes out as competently made overall, which is unusual considering there is no credited producer. There are three execs, a co-exec, and a co-producer though. Credits are odd in other ways, such as only giving name cards to four of the seven actors. One of them weirdly goes to the youngest girl, even though she has less screen time than the boy playing her brother or her teenage stepsister. Not sure what went on there.

In addition to stock characters, scares are of the standard variety too. Trope-y frights include startling reflections, ghost children, nightmare sequences, scenes of creeping around slowly, and insert shots of eerie doll faces or mounted animal heads. Deaths are extremely limited, so expect a long meantime filled with a lot of this buildup fluff.

“Toys of Terror” isn’t bad. As mentioned earlier, it just plays like ‘My First Horror Movie’ from conception to execution. Generic genre fare wasn’t what I expected given the résumés of the writer and director. You’ll merely watch “Toys of Terror” one time, think it was fine in a “whatever” sort of way, and then forget it’s even an option for holiday horror when the next winter season rolls around.

Review Score: 50

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