The Curator of Schlock #304 by Jeff Shuster
Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker
It’s Pinocchio.
Merry Christmas everyone! Here we are on Week 4 of Silent Night, Deadly Night month here at The Museum of Schlock. I didn’t think I’d make it this far. Nothing puts a damper on the holidays like psychotic Santas, undead psychotic Santas, sexy witches, and killer toys.
You must watch out what you unwrap under the tree because it just might kill you. We can’t have nice things.
1991’s Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker from director Martin Kitrosser begins with a kid named Derrick Quinn (William Thorne) answering the door in the middle of the night a couple of weeks before Christmas. He finds a wrapped gift addressed to him with one of those “Do Not Open Until Christmas” tags. Naturally, Derrick tears the gift open only to be interrupted by his father who yells at him for answering the front door in the middle of the night. He tells Derrick to get to bed as he inspects the box. Derrick’s father uncovers a robotic Santa Clause ball that wraps its tendrils around his neck and starts electrocuting him. Derrick’s father then falls and gets impaled through the eye with a fireplace poker. The ball detaches from his neck and rolls into a corner.
Derrick witnessed all of this, which might explain why he hasn’t spoken for two weeks after the incident. Yeah, I guess watching your father die a gruesome death might make a small child glum.
Sarah Quinn (Jane Higginson), Derrick’s mother, decides that a trip to the local toyshop, Petto’s Toys, is in order. A new toy might make Derrick forget about his father getting a poker through his eyeball. The proprietor of Petto’s Toys is Joe Petto (play by none other than Mickey Rooney).
This is funny considering that Mickey Rooney had condemned the original Silent Night, Deadly Night. Joe Petto lives in the toy store with his good friend, Jack Daniels, and his demented son, Pino (Brian Bremer). Pino keeps shoving some kind of worm toy in front of Derrick, but Derrick wants no part of it.
The worm toy ends up in the hands of a local motel owner. It gets activated while the dude is driving home. The worm crawls inside his head and pokes holes trough his skull. How disgusting. The motel owner loses control of his vehicle since he’s dead. The car flips and explodes immediately. I used to have this video game, San Francisco Rush. It was a racing game and every time your car would flip over, it would immediately explode. I always wondered if that would happen in the real world, but Silent Night, Deadly Night 5, with its firm grip on reality, confirmed it.
We learn that Pino is making the killer toys with the hope that one of them will finally kill Derrick. There’s a cool scene where some obnoxious teen steals roller blades meant for Derrick and ends getting take taken for a wild ride before getting run over by an oncoming car. What else? Clint Howard guest stars as a sleazy department store Santa!
Oh, and Pino is actually a robot created by Joe Petto. Pino wants Sarah to be his mother, which is why he keeps trying to kill Derrick. So yeah, it’s a demented version of Pinocchio. Stick a fork in me. I’m done with this series.
Happy New Year!
Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.
thedrunkenodyssey.com 