the black sheep of the franchise

The Black Sheep series looks back at the Christmas horror movie Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker

I’ve said it time and time again, but Christmas is definitely the holiday with the most horror movies centered around it. Classics like Black Christmas which got no sequels, but two VERY different remakes, Gremlins, and Christmas Evil gave way to modern classics like Better Watch Out, Krampus, and Terrifier 3. Then you have the one series that decided to make a whole interconnected universe out of the holiday. With 5 movies that sometimes, rarely, kinda connect with each other and 4 of them out of the way, its finally time to look at the last entry in the series before the quasi remake came out in 2012. I’ve had the pleasure to discuss 1, 3, and 4 in one way or another on the channel and part 5 deserves its flowers too. While two is an awfully good movie, 3-5 can all count as a black sheep and 5 especially has its weird moments both in front of and behind the camera. Time to check to see if the kids presents are magically produced killers as we discuss Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker.

As I stated before, this would be the last in the series until the remake and was released during the height of straight to video production in 1991. This was the third straight film in the series that went that route after the second made next to nothing in theaters. While part 3 was a mish mash of production and distribution, parts 4 and 5 had two through lines in Live Entertainment releasing the movies and Brian Yuzna being heavily involved. In part 4 that involvement was director and story credit with part 5 being screenplay co-author. Boy did he give us a story. Yuzna is a name that most of us recognize but few probably realize how prolific he has been in producing, writing, and directing. Society, the Re-Animator series, Return of the Living Dead 3, Dolls, Suitable Flesh, and The Dentist series he had a hand in one way or another. I did say co-author of the screenplay though and his partner in crime for this particular project was Martin Kitrosser. Kitrosser has had a ridiculous career as script supervisor on every Tarantino movie as well as for movies for James Gunn and Eli Roth. As a director, this is his first of only 4 but his screenwriting credits also include Friday the 13th part 3 and 5, two of my favorites.

The movie itself is actually a bunch of ideas sewn together. It’s a retelling of Pinocchio, a Lifetime movie about a dad coming back to meet his son, a Santa slasher of sorts, and has weird, multiverse implications for the rest of the series. The boys on The Movie Dumpster did a near 3-hour podcast video on it a few years ago and they were right when they said Yuzna pulled a bunch of scripts he had just lying around, painted a Christmas setting onto the canvas, and unleashed this madness with a reported 250k budget onto the world at large. At times, it is genuinely fun, really bad, so bad its good, and everything in between. The cast isn’t much to talk about except for one very oddly shaped elephant in the room and that’s Mickey Rooney as Joe Petto. Yes, that’s Joe Petto as in Geppetto from Pinocchio. You would think that’s the funniest thing about his involvement in this movie, but it somehow isn’t. The funniest thing, and my favorite thing, is that when the first movie came out, he was overly vocal against turning Christmas and Santa into a horror property and here he is, at times dressed as Santa killing people, collecting a very small check. Love me some holiday horror irony. Also, interesting that he thought Christmas stuff was sacred but it was OK to be a Looney Tunes level stereotype of an Asian man in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. You do you Rooney.

The movie starts with a boy named Derek, played by William Thorne, walking by his parents having sex, and watching for an uncomfortable amount of time, finding a present left to him on the porch and beginning to open it. His father scolds him and sends him to bed before opening the gift and finding a swift death by toy that also lands him eyeball first into a fire poker. The effects here and all through the movie has to be commended for both the time of release and low budget. Looking up that it was Screaming Mad George makes sense as SMG has had one hell of a career. William Thorne only made 4 appearances with two others being on Demonic Toys and Bill and Ted’s Bonus Journey. As a mostly mute performance, some of his expressions really sell both the absurdity of the movie and the fear the boy must be going through.

Two weeks later we get Mom Sarah, played by Jane Higginson of Slaughterhouse fame, and Derek waking up and heading to the local toy store after a visit from the neighbor. That neighbor Kim is played by Neith Hunter who was the star of part 4 of this series and even has the same name while looking very similar. Is this a prequel? An alternate universe? Are we all trapped in a hell of vaguely repeating Christmas horror movies? Who’s to say? We get to the toy store and oh boy is Mickey Rooney going through it. I actually think his performance is fun in a ridiculous way. Then we get Pino, wait that came out wrong, we are introduced to Joe’s son Pino which is obviously short for Pinocchio. With how weird and kinda dumb this movie is it’s not a far-fetched guess to assume that Pino isn’t human and was instead made by Joe but by the time we get there its even more absurd. Noah enters the store to some creepy music and Derek and Sarah head out before Noah leaves with Larry the Larva, the number 961st gift on every kid’s Christmas list in 1991. Pino is played by Brian Bremmer who does a wonderful job here and is also in stuff like Pumpkinhead and Society while still making stuff today.

Noah is played by Tracy Fraim who is also not in a ton. He is one of the leads here but is unfortunately understated and overshadowed by the insanity of the rest of the cast, particularly Petto and Pino. We then get a scene that is put in for two reasons: body count and to stretch this and boy to its already slim hour and 25 minutes. Its fun with whimsically menacing Christmas music and more practical effects shown off with yet more eye trauma for some reason. The next section is what I refer to as the lifetime movie section with Pino sneaking into the house of Sarah and Derek, Noah dressing up as a mall Santa to see his son, and some light investigating into Petto to confirm he accidentally or maybe not so accidentally made toys that caused inury. Also, at the mall we see one of the best/worst faces from Derek who assumes something is wrong with Santa as well as a little girl asking for a Bride of Re-Animator VHS. VHS tapes were expensive in the early 90s so good for her for shooting for the stars.

We learn that Petto and Pino used to live in Sarah’s house like that’s an excuse for him breaking back in. We also see another present that is put on the doorstep that ends up in the hands of Lonnie who gets Back to the Future wannabe rocket booted right to the hospital. He, and the not teenage teenagers, are added for kill count, violence, and with the couple at least, sex appeal. Noah and Sarah rekindle their relationship where we officially learn of his parentage while Derek is baby sat by the teen girl and her 35 year old boyfriend. Derek has a voyeur kink and ends up seeing these two get hot and heavy as well but it doesn’t last as a more deranged than usual Joe comes into the house wearing a Santa suit and unleashes the toys that he, the toy maker has created. Joe’s back story is that he created a bunch of messed up toys, how they work we will never know, that injured and maybe killed some kids.

Some of these attacking toys he has unleashed seem pretty harmless like the groping hand that looks right out of the Christopher Lee section of Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, but the others know how to ruin a good time. There are soldiers and a canon who apparently shoot real bullets and a tank that is part of the Guyver who saws and cuts his way through a very unlikeable dude. The girl gets it the worst here though as she takes more punishment than a normal babysitter would. With the bloodiest distraction possible, Joe steals Derek by putting him in a sack like a cartoon character and takes him to his basement. The two adult heroes fight their way through the bottom two levels of the house. With all the weapons and bots at his disposal, Joe sees fit to shoot Noah in the face with a squirt gun that is just water by the way. Its not Joe though as we find out and his face is removed in favor of Pino. Pino’s performance here is great and unhinged even before he turns into a Ken doll and tries to force himself on Sarah.

Derek, Sarah, and Noah fight off Pino who has killed Joe and we get one of those endings where it’s giving us sequel bait. A sequel that would never come. The series has been mostly dormant since this film with a notable exception of the really dark 2012 remake which is a blast. I say mostly dormant because the first two movies in the series seemingly get new Blu-ray and 4K pretty regularly from various physical media outlets. The other 3 have been lumped together, first with a barebones bad quality DVD but later on a wonderful triple pack Blu-ray from Vestron Video that is pretty loaded on special features. This movie is too short and too much fun to not be watched with the rest of the series. At least 3-5. While I’m here and we finally finished the series, I’ll also throw out my ranking of the movies. For me, it goes 1, 4, 2, 5, 3 but they are all worth watching and add up to be the preeminent Christmas horror series. Silent Night, Deadly Night 5 is forgotten, dumb, and should be wound up nearly every holiday season.

A couple of the previous episodes of The Black Sheep can be seen at the bottom of this article. To see more, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!