Evil Toons

 

 

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 3^rd 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.