The year is 1992, and a man, Fred Olen Ray, has a vision. A vision of another great mixed media film. A film to rival Who Framed Rodger Rabbit in the animation/live action genre.
Evil Toons is the result.
Though to be honest, Evil Toons should just be called Evil Toon, as there is only one animated character, and he is only present for, at best, three minutes.
The plot, such as it is, consists of an evil book, a bevy of bouncy chicks, and David Carradine.
The WTF starts early, during the opening credits. What is this? Demon salad tossing? Keepin' it classy, that is for sure.
The opening scene is oddly prophetic, considering how Carradine met his end. With a swell of dramatic music, he places a noose round his neck and hangs himself. Ouch.
Once again we are greeted with stilted dialogue, delivered woodenly and over emoted to the point of hilarity. There are several references to pretty girls meeting their end in horror movies. "Why do things always have to start with the young, beautiful coeds going down into the basement?" "Why is it, when there are pretty girls in a big spooky house, it has to thunder and lightening?" "I'll get you in the sequel you bitch!"
When talking about the dialogue, it can't be ignored that at several times during the movie, dialogue is just added in, without regard to what is actually happening onscreen. It is understandable considering the movie was made in eight days with the equipment and crew from another production. Post must have been a challenge, though one would have thought they would have went to some effort to match things up. It almost ends up looking like a bad japanese overdub, with speech seemingly emanating from characters whose mouths are not even moving the teeniest bit.
They took a line from looney toons with the sound effects, with over the top crashes and beeps and bloops, with hilarious results. Really, during a scene where a girl is doing a strip tease (for the other girls for no reason, mind you) she tosses her top to the side, and you hear glass breaking. I know it was the early nineties, but undergarments weren't that heavy duty! It just gets worse after that.
Leaving the plot (such as it is) and the dialogue (such as IT is) alone, we are left with what is basically a B movie boob fest, with the entire movie one big set up for the next scene where the girls can take their tops off. Now I'm not one to complain about boobs, but even I have to draw the plausibility line somewhere.
A few high points make this movie watchable (barely).
- The character played by Dick Miller (who is the only good performer in the film, really) is watching A Bucket of Blood, in which Miller himself starred. The comment "How come this guy never won an academy award?" is hilariously delivered, totally deadpan.
- Dick Miller once again, getting his junk bitten off in his death scene. Bet that looked great on the old resume.
- The Scooby Doo wimpery sniveling! I kept expecting someone to say "zoinks!", though it never happened.
- Unnatural sleeping positions. Who lays like this? Did no one notice she is laid out like she is already on a slab? Come on!
All of the horror aside, this movie goes above and beyond to be cheesy and over the top, and they almost make it work. Almost. The fact that the girls almost all ended up working in the adult entertainment industry is testament to the quality of the acting. (Your face would melt, looking at the places my research took me on the 'net, trying to find out where they are now.) You can definately take this movie off your must watch list, though check out the trailer, because at least that is entertaining.
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