You ever wonder what would happen if someone spiked a Hallmark Christmas movie with gasoline fumes, trauma, and a shot of Jim Henson’s blood pressure medication? Look no further than Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker—a film that answers the question: “What if Pinocchio was a pervert and Santa was played by a drunk Mickey Rooney?”
Released direct-to-video in 1991, long after the original Silent Night, Deadly Night stirred up controversy in malls and conservative households nationwide, Part 5 is less of a horror film and more of a demented fever dream conjured by a screenwriter who once saw Child’s Play and said, “But what if the dolls had daddy issues?”
The Plot: Santa’s Workshop by Way of a Meth Lab
The film opens with a child named Derek watching his father get murdered by a Christmas present. That’s right. A Christmas gift. The kind wrapped in cheery paper and topped with a bow, except this one launches itself into dad’s face like a razor-bladed jack-in-the-box from hell. And that’s the normal part.
From there, the movie spirals into a paranoid nightmare involving a mysterious toymaker named Joe Petto (yes, Joe Petto, because subtlety died in the ‘80s), played by Mickey Rooney, who at this point was about one bad gig away from strangling his agent with a Christmas light cord. Joe runs a toy shop with his creepy adult “son” Pino (get it? Joe Petto… Pino… Pinocchio—look, if you’re still here, buckle up).
It turns out that Pino is a robot built by Joe to replace his dead son, but Pino is also sexually obsessed with Derek’s mom, and somewhere in all this, there are toys coming to life and maiming people like it’s an outtake from The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Hell.
If you’re confused, you’re not alone. Watching this film sober is like trying to follow a dream you had while passed out in a dentist’s chair.
The Performances: Who Needs Acting When You Have Puppets?
Mickey Rooney sleepwalks through the film with the energy of a grumpy elf on his third DUI. This is a man who publicly protested the first Silent Night, Deadly Night in 1984… only to cash a paycheck and star in Part 5 seven years later. Hypocrisy never looked so bloated and sweaty.
Jane Higginson, as the widowed mom, does her best with dialogue that sounds like it was written by a Speak & Spell possessed by Ed Wood. Her character arc goes from “concerned” to “confused” to “please end this movie” in record time.
And Pino… oh, sweet malfunctioning Pino. Brian Bremer plays him with all the charm of a haunted ventriloquist dummy trying to hump your furniture. By the end, he’s in full robot-face mode, chasing people around in a latex mask while sobbing “I just wanted to be your son!” It’s not tragic. It’s not scary. It’s just sad. Like watching C-3PO go through puberty.
The Gore: Yuletide Splatter With No Pudding
Despite being part of a franchise once known for controversial kills, The Toy Maker pulls its punches. Sure, a few toys kill people—there’s a pair of killer roller skates, a sentient toy soldier, and a Christmas ball that shoots spikes—but the gore is mild, the execution sloppy, and the payoff nonexistent.
At no point do these deaths feel connected to any kind of logic or structure. Victims pop in and out like redshirt extras on Star Trek, there to die in weird ways and pad out the runtime. It’s death by Mad Libs. “He was killed by a [toy] that [verb]into his [body part] while wearing [holiday accessory].”
The Direction: Fever Dream with a Camcorder
Directed by Martin Kitrosser—better known for script supervisor credits on Pulp Fiction and Friday the 13th—this film looks and feels like a public access Christmas special that got hijacked by a Satanic puppet cult. The cinematography is bland, the editing jarring, and the pacing slower than a department store Santa on Ambien.
Kitrosser makes the baffling decision to treat certain scenes with dead-serious melodrama. At one point, Derek’s mom stares at a music box with such intensity you’d think she was watching the Zapruder film. Moments that should be played for camp or horror are instead marinated in soap opera lighting and violins.
The Tone: Charles Dickens Meets Charles Manson
The biggest sin of Silent Night, Deadly Night 5 is that it can’t decide what it wants to be. Is it horror? Camp? Sci-fi? A tragic Frankenstein allegory? A PSA about buying American-made toys?
The tonal whiplash is severe. One moment, you’re watching Pino get kicked in his robotic nuts. The next, Mickey Rooney is weeping over a broken robot child like it’s Blade Runner but with Christmas lights. There’s a scene where a killer toy drills into a man’s head, followed immediately by a tender flashback of a mother wrapping presents. It’s not so much “horror comedy” as it is “holiday-induced schizophrenia.”
The Ending: Pinocchio Trauma in a Santa Suit
In the third act, the movie reveals its “twist”: Pino isn’t Joe’s son—he is the toy. He was never human. Just an old man’s failed experiment in building a robot child. Then he tries to sexually assault Derek’s mom while calling her “Mommy,” which is about as far from Christmas spirit as one can get without setting the nativity scene on fire.
Pino is finally “killed” when Derek’s real dad (surprise! alive!) appears and crushes him in a moment that feels like the writers finally gave up and just yelled “wrap it up!” It’s not cathartic. It’s confusing. You don’t cheer. You just blink. Then the credits roll and you sit there, staring at your reflection in the screen, wondering what decisions in life brought you here.
Final Thoughts: Not Even Coal-Worthy
Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker is a Christmas horror movie that forgets to be either. It’s a barely functional assembly of rejected concepts: killer toys, killer dads, robot sons, and Mickey Rooney in what appears to be a hostage situation. It’s neither scary enough to satisfy horror fans nor fun enough to qualify as camp.
If Gremlins is a well-wrapped gift and Child’s Play is a surprise in the box, The Toy Maker is the soggy package left behind by a dog that got into the eggnog. Avoid it. Or better yet, gift it to someone you hate.
Final Rating: 1.5 out of 5 robotic nut-punches.
Because nothing says “Merry Christmas” like Mickey Rooney screaming at a sex-starved robot puppet named Pino.
