Review #288: Terror Toons 2 (2007)
October 2024 Horror Origins Review #5 - Terror Toons 2 (2007)
While I saw the first Terror Toons around 2005 or so, it was quite some time (maybe ten years later?) before I ever saw the second. I'll get this right out at the top: Terror Toons 2 feels very much like a remake of Terror Toons 1, whether that was intended or not. (The plot is, beat-for-beat, identical.) All of the individual parts are better this time around- the budget is clearly higher, the special effects are better, there's a bigger and more established cast of characters, and it's obvious that more time was spent making this one than the weekend or whatever it took to make the first one. However, I can't honestly say the end result is any better as a whole.
The movie starts off with a "cartoon" segment involving the two main antagonists (much like the start of the first film)- this time, it's intended to be a monster-ified version of Hansel and Gretel. We then are introduced to a family celebrating a birthday party for their youngest daughter, who receives the Terror Toons DVD in the mail. We get a bathing scene of one of the female leads (thankfully this time she's explicitly 18 years old, as opposed to Candy whose physical age was ambiguous but whose mental age was certainly too young to have a nude scene) and then the party guests arrive. The DVD gets played, the villains show up, most of the cast gets killed off through "cartoon"-based shenanigans, and then the leads end up in hell being monologued at by the devil (or more accurately, the devil's son this time around) until they realize they can give themselves superpowers, which they then use to kill the villains and destroy the machine pumping out DVDs. And of course, it ends with a stinger where it's implied that this mess is far from over.
As I said, every single one of those plot beats is identical between the two movies. However, as I said, there are a LOT of things this one does better than its predecessor.
I really liked how it's at least implied that the arrival of the Terror Toons DVD has a purpose (the characters assume it's a birthday present for Tiffany, the younger daughter) compared to the first movie, where nobody even takes a moment to speculate where it came from or why it was sent. I really liked how some care was put into giving (most of) the characters at least one defining trait, compared to the first where all characters but one had the single trait of "guy", "girl", or "villain". I really liked how the villains could talk this time around, because it gave them something to actually do in this movie instead of just gesture while the soundtrack plays laugh or monkey sounds. The protagonists' realization that they can become superheroes is just as silly this time but it actually got foreshadowed earlier on (in a subtle moment when Kevin has an idea of how to fight back against the rat-faced Hansel, he says "I have an idea" and then a mousetrap seemingly materializes right next to him). I also really, really liked how the ending was left at least somewhat ambiguous, with Kevin blasting off on a rocket at the DVD machine before he is never seen again.
However, this movie still has a ton of glaring issues. The "cartoons" are just as ill-named as the first time, with virtually no animations to speak of and instead just being people standing in front of green screens. They're a bit more well-done this time around but again, I have to ask why it was decided to call them "cartoons" if they weren't going to be cartoons. At this point I want to assume that was the director leaning into the absurdity of it- he had to create a "new style of animation" to sidestep the costs of making actual cartoons, so why not take that new thing and run with it? But if that were the case I would expect Terror Toons 3 and 4 to keep running with that idea, and I'm pretty sure they don't. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.
Another problem is the sheer number of characters in this one. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's four to five times as many characters as there were in the previous movie- while that can be a plus (it makes this party feel like a real party, as opposed to four people sitting around in extra shirts playing Strip Wegee) it also means that the movie spends a LOT of time killing off random characters in order to fill time. I was shocked when I noticed today that this movie is only one minute longer than the last (75 minutes vs. the 74 of Terror Toons 1) because it feels way longer, likely due to the constant repetition of "Character wanders off. Character encounters villain. Character gets killed. Another character wanders off. Repeat." Also, as much as this movie might look more well-produced than the previous film, that's a VERY low bar to clear. The lighting is still amateur, the acting is still bad, and the sound is terrible in ways that weren't an issue in the first movie. Because Hansel and Gretel have lines this time around, the actors inside the villain costumes spend a good amount of time speaking on-set. But the director made the baffling decision to primarily use the actual on-set audio (where their voices are muffled by the oversized rubber masks they're wearing). Sometimes their dialogue was looped in later, but most of the time it isn't. And it sounds very bad.
So, again, the individual parts of this movie are largely better than before. I can point to a dozen points where it's clear the director learned from his mistakes. However, if you gave me the choice between watching this or the first movie, I would honestly probably watch the first one instead. Maybe that's nostalgia talking, but I do think there's something to be said about having a bigger budget and more talent and more experience and still churning out a bad product. The first time, they had great excuses for the movie being bad (no budget and no time). This time, I think they could have done much better than they did.
Overall Rating: 4/10 Extreme Close-Ups of People Eating
Nostalgic Rating: 3/10 Homophobic Brain Transplants
Rest In Peace: Shane Ballard, the actor who played Damien (the devil's son) in this movie, passed away at the age of 23 shortly after filming wrapped on Terror Toons 2. According to his IMDB page, Shane ran for sheriff in Mississippi (and had a documentary made about his bid for office), and also, he owned the "Old MacDonald" record that Andy Kaufman used in his act!
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