Tripping Stardust Through Fetid Film XII - Evil Toons (1992)

What does Carradine, a tramp, and a cartoon wolf have in common? They all hung themselves while engaging in auto-erotic asphyxiation!
... Whaaat?

Genre: Comedy Horror... with about 40 seconds of Animation 

Starring: David Carradine (Kill Bill 2 • Deathrace 2000), Monique Gabrielle (Emmanuelle V  • Deathstalker II)

Directed By: Fred Olen Ray (Emmanuelle 2001: Emmanuelle's Sensual Pleasures • Star Slammer)

Overview: A four-girl cleaning crew stays in an old mansion for the weekend. They begin their big clean up job with the basement, where they find what appears to be an infernal book for summoning 'that which has never lived, and thus may never die'.

Tagline:
First they undress you, then they possess you!

Well if nothing else, these Tripping Stardust entries will surely dust off my grade-school roman numeral lessons. One day I'll be sure to look up the weird-ass reason films used that outmoded system of putting production/release years in roman numerals for so long. Hell, maybe a generous reader will educate me. That would be nice.

What can one say about Evil Toons? We begin with David Carradine, which is always awesome. Then enter four total ditzy girls who are going to spend a night in the decrepit manse. Two have hair that's too big, one overacts, and one is obviously the hot underneath brainy shy one. The acting is terrible, even some of the tits are oddly shaped, but after all is said and done, Evil Toons delivers a perfect four diamond ring-fingered pimp slap of schlock to its hungry audience. What makes Evil Toons so enjoyable is how little it takes itself seriously, while still not going overboard with the groaners and self-parodies.

Best Scene Ever?

There's the awkwardly ironic first scene, where David Carradine, dressed exactly like the evil bad guy from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, goes into the basement closet, ties a noose around both his neck and his dinkie and hangs himself (*Note: there is no actual closet or dinkie noose in this scene). The second is the scene where the four girls are getting ready to relax for their evening and the tramp of the bunch does a strip tease for the other 3 girls… pretty sure she was demonstrating to them how to do it as opposed to trying to seduce them. The trampy strip tease is accompanied by cartoon sound effects: a wacky wobbly sound is tossed in when she jiggles her ass, a comical peeling sound is heard when she takes off her tight-fitting top. Then, just when you think that the show's over, Trampalina goes and grabs the frumpy-dressed hair-up big-glasses-wearing quiet girl and proceeds to have her try a strip tease, for which we are all thankful. Though shy and unwilling to go all the way, she bares all in the mirror moments later, just for you.

The animation is worse that your 4-year-old cousin could do, so it's awesome

Suggested Evil Toons Drinking Games:

Take a drink when the script makes a groaner pun or when it breaks the fourth wall.

Have each of the guests pick a 'girlfriend' from the all woman cast of main characters.
Drink when your girlfriend:

Drinks

Gets topless

Dances

Humps

Dies

Kills

Take 5 gulps anytime you actually see any girl actually doing any cleaning

2 gulps if your girlfriend is the Final Girl!

By the end, one of you will be wasted while the rest may find yourselves grossely under-toxicated. It's a game of chance!

Lessons Learned from Evil Toons:

If you read The Necronomicon out loud, even if it's a choppy English paraphrasing of an Old Latin text, that shit still counts.

Sometimes it is that easy to spot the Final Girl.

With a title like Evil Toons, you aren't guaranteed well animated toons, or even more than one toon at all, and furthermore it doesn't mean that the one toon will actually have more than a minute of face time.

David's Necronomicon should have gotten more lines. It was full of awesomely baaaad puns.

Quality Meter - how bad it really is - 60%

Performance: 4 Cinematography: 7 Script: 7 Plot: 5 Mood: 7

(Wooden/overacted players in a poor premise with a production value that somehow stays decent)

Heckleometer - how awesome it is when you plan a good time with a bad film

Performance: 9 Cinematography: 8 Script: 8 Plot: 8 Mood: 9

(Perfect casting for an outrageous concept that mocks itself with potentially intentional irony)

Overall Rating: 84% (Toon In!)

Aftertaste:

Fred Olen Ray looks like one hell of a prolific 80s B-Filmmaker. If he directed in 1910s, his films would be in tawdry nickelodeons. If he made film in the 70s, they'd be at Grindhouse drive-ins. Lucky for us, the brunt of his filmmaking career was that era that needs no introduction, and can very well carry a film almost entirely on its hairspray'd fumes. After having seen Star Slammer a few months back, my curiosity was peaked and after watching Evil Toons, I became genuinely intrigued by Fred Olen Ray. I've recently made it my mission to check out more of his work. And joy, is there some good lookin' stuff out there. By carefully excluding the other genre he dabbles in, with such titles as 13 Erotic Ghosts, Bikini Hoe-Down and Masseuse 2, we're still left with plenty to mock at with The Brain Leeches, Alien Dead, Scalps, Biohazard, Invisible Mom and Droid Gunner just touching the tip of the iceberg. Don't you worry kids, I'll let you know.