The Toymaker (also known as Robert and the Toymaker) is a 2017 British supernatural horror film written and directed by Andrew Jones. A sequel to the (2016) film The Curse of Robert the Doll and (2015) film Robert and a third installment to the Robert the Doll film series. It stars Erick Hayden, Jo Weil, Nathan Head, Lee Bane and Sophie Willis. The film is about the Nazis pursuing a Toymaker who has acquired a mystical book which gives life to inanimate objects.
Plot
Bavaria, Germany, 1941. Fleeing from the Nazis, Benjamin Hoffman seeks refuge with Christophe Muller and his wife and daughter. He reveals that the Nazis are seeking the occult secrets of a book he carries. SS officer Colonel Ludolf von Alvensleben comes to the house, believing Hoffman is there. In the course of this, he kills Hoffman and the Mullers. However, the Mullers’ teenage daughter Esther escapes with the book and seeks refuge with the toymaker Amos Bluchert before dying. Fascinated with the book, Amos reads from it and uses a spell to bring Robert and other dolls in his workshop to life. However, after seeing the living toys, his assistant Abigail Kendrick becomes fearful and turns Amos in to the Nazis seeking the reward.
Adolf Hitler as Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
Production
Filming
Filming took place in November 2016 at Tredomen Cottage in Crickhowell and at the Traditional Toys shop in Llantrisant, the Old Natwest Bank building in Bute Street Cardiff, Gwili Railway Station in Carmarthen and the Cardiff Masonic Hall.[1]
Release
The film was released nationwide on August 21, 2017, and was released in DVD on September 5, 2017.[2] The film also released in Netflix on April 30, 2022.[3]
Reception
Moria Reviews gave the film a rating of 2 stars and wrote; I found The Toymaker a somewhat better film than Robert the Doll. That said, it is past the one-hour point before we get to see Robert. It is still the same scrawny immobile puppet it was in the first film, although this time it gets to be accompanied by a couple of other dolls.[4]
Culture Crypt gave the film a negative review and giving the film a review score of 20 and wrote; Even though it rips off what Full Moon already did with its “Puppet Master” series, “Robert and the Toymaker’s” dolls versus Nazis theme should create a playground for midnight movie madness. Yet it ends up being even more intolerably stale and un-fun than the two movies that came before.[5]
