Sunday, November 23, 2025

My Review of Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker (1991)

 


Written by Martin Kitrosser And Brian Yuzna
Directed by Martin Kitrosser

Sarah: "You killed Joe."
Pino: "I had to... he broke me... and even though he always fixed me... I had to make sure that this time he wouldn't hurt me again."

And I'm back on this franchise. The fourth movie veered into the strangest territory with witchcraft and a new protagonist with Kim Levitt (Neith Hunter). She's back for this one but the story ain't about her. In fact, she didn't really need to be in this one at all.

Kim didn't add anything to the movie, other than to reassure the audience she was still alive. Her role in this one fell into supporting a mother and son named Sarah (Jane Higginson) and Derek Quinn (William Thorne). The movie also began with the death of Derek's father, Tom (Van Quattro) in a grisly enough manner.

Keeping with the title of the movie, there are two villains at play here. The first being the seemingly benevolent toymaker himself, Joe Petto (Mickey Rooney) and the other being his father unusual son, Pino (Brian Bremer). In case it wasn't obvious, this one's a twisted take on Pinocchio. A very twisted take.

First of all, Joe's toys have a killer effect as we all saw in the opening scene with Tom's death by toy. Derek also suspected that something was amiss with Joe and while Kim wasn't best used as a potential ally to Sarah and Derek, at least there was one in the form of Noah Adams (Tracy Fraim).

Noah felt like there was a backstory that was meant to be explored but it's not really touched upon that. Instead it's mostly Sarah/Derek dealing with their grief and trying to stay alive from the homicidal father and son duo of the piece.

Speaking of the villains, out of the two, I do think that Pino himself was a little bit more interesting, even if the actor seemed to be trying to replicate Billy from the first movie. Pino's desperation to belong however ended up being his undoing.

- I'm guessing Larry the Larvae toy was meant to be a nod to the previous movie.
- At different points in the movie we had Noah, Joe and Pino dressed as Santa Claus.
- Ricky (Clint Howard) died in the previous movie but was alive in this one.
- Chronology: Not long since the previous movie. Kim also adopted Lonnie as well.

I wouldn't be in a rush to recommend Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker to anyone but at the same time, it was mostly okay. A lot of the ideas have been better explored elsewhere but it's diverting enough I suppose.

Rating: 5 out of 10 

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