Pinocchio's Revenge

Year: 1996
Director: Kevin Tenney
Writer: Kevin Tenney
Genre: Horror: Evil dolls

If you think about it, Pinnochio's Revenge is a really funny name. The movie has nothing to do with the "real" character of Pinnochio or anything. So the name is basically just for a doll which apparently is having his revenge. Weirdly enough, although there is a backstory in the movie it is never truly discussed. Because of that, we don't know exactly what he is getting revenge for anyway.

Let's talk about the movie though. We've got a single mother and her daughter. The mother is a lawyer and seems caught defending a lot of people who won't win in court. Her latest case deals with a purported child murderer who only stopped after he killed his own son. Also buried with the son was the Pinnochio doll.

So while working on this case the doll somehow makes it to her car and then into the hands of her daughter for her birthday. It all seems good and fine until bad things start happening. Why you would let your child play with a piece of evidence in a murder is beyond me, but apparently it wasn't a big enough deal. So yeah, basically there is something mysterious and bad about the toy. Or maybe there isn't. You've got to watch to find out!

Whenever I start to watch an evil doll/toy/puppet/whatever movie I worry that it'll be a rehash of Child's Play. Thankfully this is not the case. It kind of reminds me of the movie Magic which also featured a puppet in a creative manner. The movie isn't incredible by any stretch but it's decent. When you're low on puppet-related horror this should take of things.

Night of the Demons

Year: 1988
Director: Kevin Tenney
Writer: Joe Augustyn
Genre: Horror: Demons

Night of the Demons is a pretty average horror feature. You've ogt your standard group of teens or twenty-somethings (you can never tell) who go out to a mansion. It's Halloween so they're having a party in an abandoned spooky house, of course! Things get weird when one of the girls becomes possessed... Although nobody realizes what is happening for a while.

This is basically one of those throwaway horror flicks for teens. There's nudity, gore, and all that stuff kids are supposed to be into. Because it's not very interesting I'm surprised to know that there was even a Night of the Demons 2 made. Then of course there was also a remake done in 2010 for some reason. The movie isn't all that creative though so why spend so much effort on it?

Some of the effects are kind of cool at least. I've never seen someone press a lipstick container into their breast, for example. Very odd. The ending is also rather odd in the horror canon. There are unlikely survivors, I guess I'll say. Not only that, but there is an interesting final joke to the story. It's not really a twist but just an overarching story bit that is tied up nicely. I had a laugh.