The Toybox (2018)

I just finished up a flick that’ll make you wanna re-think taking a long family road trip and it’s called, The Toybox (2018). Even if you still want to take that road trip after watching this one, you’ll definitely wanna check the owner history before buying a used RV for said trip!

The Toybox is a horror/thriller that was directed by Tom Nagel. It was written by Jeff Denton, Jeff Miller, Brian Nagel, and Tom Nagel. It has a ninety-five-minute runtime and is rated NR (not rated) but has language and violence. Here’s what the story is about. Charles wants to take his family on vacation so he can reconcile with his two sons. To make sure the family will be comfortable for the trip, Charles buys an old RV. Unfortunately, the RV’s history will be the family’s bloody downfall…

I wasn’t sure if I’d like the movie once I found out we (the audience) would spend most of our time in an RV, but I was wrong. Yeah, most of the movie is spent inside the RV, but the way they unfold the story really worked, for me. The dialogue was a bit boring, but when has listening to people bicker really been entertaining? So, yeah, the first part of the film is setting things up and letting the audience know there are obvious problems that have lead to some bad blood in the family, which is where the bickering comes from. Once the story focus changes to the ghost side of things, things got a lot better.

As far as the playthrough goes, I liked it. Yeah, it moves a bit slow at first, but then things kicked into gear and I was hooked. The slow build up to the end was more than worth the wait to see how everything finishes out. They did a killer job building the suspense and the way they did it heightened the overall feel of the movie. I think my biggest problem was the characters felt a bit flat and I think part of that was due to the dialogue and the other was cast chemistry.

Some of the cast is Denise Richards (Starship Troopers), Mischa Barton (The Sixth Sense), Jeff Denton (Frankenstein Reborn), Brian Nagel (ClownTown), Greg Violand (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), Malika Michelle (The Toybox), David H. Greathouse (The Toybox), Matt Mercer (Beyond the Gates) and Katie Keene (Sandbar).

I thought most of the cast did a good job and it was (odd) cool seeing Richards in a horror flick. Greathouse made for a great creepy serial killer. Usually, I’m not a Barton fan, but she surprised me with this one. I actually liked her and thought she did a decent job in this one. Even though I liked seeing Richards, her character didn’t really add much to the story and after her character died, I didn’t miss her.

I thought the overall special effects looked great and whoever did the set design killed it with how creepy they made the RV look and feel. The practical and make-up were bloody awesome looking.

Side note, if The Toybox is something you wanna check out then here you go. It became available nationwide September 18th, 2018 on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD, including Amazon Instant, iTunes, iN DEMAND, DirecTV, Comcast, Optimum, Dish, Google Play and more.