Evil
Toons
1992
Director- Fred Olen Ray
Cast- Madison Stone, Barbara Dare (Stacy Nix), Monique
Gabrielle, Suzanne Ager, Dick Miller, Artie Johnson, Michelle Bauer, David
Carradine, Don Dowe
Four hot
young girls are spending the weekend in an abandoned house to get it cleaned
for the new owner in exchange for $100 (money went a lot further 30 years ago).
Terry (Suzanne Ager) is the responsible leader. Jan (80s and 90s porn star
Barbara Dare, here under the stage name Stacy Nix) is cool and laid back. Megan
(statuesque scream queen Monique Gabrielle) is the naïve innocent. Roxanne (90s
porn superstar Madison Stone) is the wild, horny member of the quartet. Checking
on the girl’s is a goofy neighbor (Artie Johnson) and the long suffering Dick
Miller (Demon Knight, The Howling, The Burbs, Gremlins and about a hundred
other things)
A strange man (David
Carradine) drops off a package which the girls open immediately to find an
ancient grimoire. Its illustrated with cartoons of monsters having their way
with beautiful ladies. That night, one
of the cartoons comes to life, in the form of a giant 2D cartoon monster that possesses
Roxanne. She then goes about killing everyone and attempting to drag their
souls to hell via a “soul shroud.” Naturally, nerdy Meg is the one that must
stop her. In the midst of all of this are various contrived situations where the
girls take off their clothes.
OK, so the plot is a little
thin. But that’s not why you’d watch this movie. The first, second, and third
reason you’d watch this film is for the cast. This is a good chance to see several
80s and 90s sexbombs all gathered in one place.
Suzanne Ager had a comparatively
short but packed career, squeezing a lot of movies into a few years, including
several others with Fred Olen Ray. However, her entire filmography is B movies
and most of them are not easy to track down anymore.
Monique Gabrielle appeared
in a long list of 80s movies of a surprising variety. She appeared in
mainstream popular movies like Night Shift and Bachelor Party and forgotten B
movies like Angel Eyes. She ranged from starring roles like in Deathstalker 2
to cameos like in Not of This Earth. Her catalogue ranges from rated PG to X.
However, many of these movies have not made the transition from video to DVD or
Blu Ray and are hard to find.
Barbara Dare had a prolific career
in 80s porn. Her lithe, sultry presentation made her a favorite of the video
store era. She also had a few mainstream appearances but porn is what she will
always be remembered for. However, only a small part of her filmography has been
preserved on modern media. That has nothing to do with Barbara and is just the
nature of the porn business. Unlike Disney, which preserves films in their “vault”,
porn has always been an in the moment business looking for the next
thrill. Much of the 80s and 90s porn
that has made it to the internet are poor low resolution digital transfers of 3rd
generation video copies with fuzzy images and heavy pixelazation.
Madison is
likewise best known for her career in porn. Madison had an appearance, and a
presentation, that was unique for her era. Her jet black hair (which was cut in
Bettie Page bangs by the time she retired) , obvious tan lines, rock star
fashion and piercings (she has a piercing named after her) set the stage for
the alt. girls that would follow in her footsteps a decade later. She cultivated a playful, sometimes goofy, image
that was well suited for parts needing tongue in cheek or physical comedy. She
puts that to good use in this film.
Madison has a bit more of
her career preserved than Barbara, mainly because of her work with the “Evil
Empire” (Evil Angel, Elegant Angel and Bruce Seven) which has kept a few of her
movies in print. Still, many of her movies have ended up as pixelated, barely
watchable, clips on the internet.
Both
Madison and Barbara worked in the era before most of porn had gone “gonzo”
meaning the movies still had plots, so they were used to engaging in dialogue
and playing a part. Sure, their acting wasn’t going to win an Oscar, but they
were at least as good as the majority of actors in B horror movies.
Evil Toons is self-referential (one might say self-deprecating),
poking obvious fun at the horror genre in general. Fred Olen Ray was good at
doing this without beating the joke to death. Dick Miller was always perfect
for films that didn’t take themselves too seriously. He somehow convinces you
that he is so tired and worn out, that he’s not even interested in the
beautiful girls all around him. David Carradine starring in this film is a bit
of a mystery, it being so far outside his normal repertoire of martial arts/
action flicks.
But what
about the big cartoon monster? After all, that is pretty much the one thing
that separates this film from practically every other film in the genre. Today,
2D animation has suffered an ignominious death at the hands of Pixar but there
was a time when it was the only game in town and periodically movies would combine
animation with live action to varying degrees of success.
Anyone
over 45 will probably remember Pete’s Dragon. That film (which was one of the
standbys that my elementary school teachers had for slow days) put a cartoon
dragoon in a live action world. The gold standard for this art form was Who
Framed Roger Rabbit, which came out in 1988. Animation impresario Ralph Bakshi
would combine animation and live action to create the memorable, sexy film Cool
World. Well, Evil Toons doesn’t get anywhere near those films. In the common
Hollywood game of “want, settle, get” you want Roger Rabbit, you’ll settle for
Cool World, but you get Evil Toons.
I would have almost thought
that the cartoon monster was not the original intention, like it was a last
minute fix for a special effects creature that didn’t work out, if not for the
cartoons in the grimoire that seem to indicate that this was the plan for the
movie all along. No matter, as I said earlier, the reason you watch this film
is for the female cast. Everything else is just garnish on the plate.
So if you’re expecting big budget, or even low budget, special effects or a well thought out story, then you should probably skip Evil Toons. However, if you are wanting a highly concentrated dose of hotness from a bygone era, then this is just the movie you’ve been looking for.
