Take the mini-monsters from some of Charles Band's most popular series, the narrative backbone of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, and Corey Feldman and Vanessa Angel from whatever bar they were drinking in ... and you've got Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys, a movie so incompetently poor and uninspired that it doesn't even matter that the filmmakers made it that way on purpose.

Feldman (in full-on "Charlie Sheen gravel-mumble") plays a member of the Toulon clan, which means that when he injects some of his blood into his little puppet pals, they come to life and get all violent. Angel plays a toy company tycoon who sold her soul to the devil so that her own toys could spring to life on Christmas morning and kill all the kids they can. The "good" evil dolls are the Puppet Master gang: Smallhead, Hookhand, um, Jester with the spinny face. The "bad" evil dolls are the Demonic Toys ... toys: a baby doll with gas, a freaky jack in the box, and a cute lil teddy bear with sharp fangs.

Schlock-slinger extraordinaire Band had nothing to do with this umpteenth exhumation of the "killer toys" concept, and it makes one wonder how bad a movie has to be for Charles Band to step away from it. (He did retain an "executive producer" credit, mainly, I guess because he created both the Puppet Master and Demonic Toys movies, but the properties no longer belong to his production company.)

So yeah, anyway, you're asking me about a movie that stars Corey Feldman, Vanessa Angel, a really goofy-looking Satan, and a half-dozen killer toys? OK, how's this: It's the sort of bad that makes your jaw drop open for about 45 seconds before you realize that your TV has many alternate options, and you can therefore click onto 24 or Survivor or something in which an evil baby doll doesn't fart itself six feet into the air to bunch Corey Feldman in the face.

Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys is not funny, it's not scary, and it's certainly not a worthwhile way to spend 90 minutes of the time you're given on this planet. I gave it a fair shake because it's my job and because I have a soft spot for really good schlock, so believe me when I tell you this is a true piece of cheaply-made and embarrassingly inept crap.

But hey, you don't need me to tell you this stuff. The flick was directed by Ted Nicolaou, who has done more bad films than Uwe Boll and Ed Wood combined ... AND the thing premiered on the Sci-Fi Network. If you need any clearer indication of how bad this movie is, try sitting through the first 20 minutes without the assistance of beer, weed, or a very large mallet.

The DVD

Video: It's a surprsingly clean anamorphic widescreen (1.77:1) transfer ... for such a clearly tacky movie.

Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0. Be prepared for the insano Xmas music that'll have you wondering how far you could jam knitting needles into your ears before it'd hurt.

Extras: Just some trailers for The Fallen Ones, Demon Hunter, and It Waits.

Final Thoughts

I do believe this movie was loosely based on William Shakespeare's The Tempest, but I could be mistaken.