Revenge of the Red Baron (1994)
The child on this poster is not in the movie.
A Killer What?
The Red Baron is killed by a young hotshot pilot, but just as his plane is entering a tailspin it's struck by lightning and disappears. Fast forward to 73 years later as the now elderly pilot’s model replica of the Baron’s plane is struck by another bolt of lightning which imbues the tiny plane with the soul of the dead flying ace.
Killer dolls are nothing new but The Red Baron is a special case because he’s essentially a killer replica plane. Though the doll in the plane is an action figure, the close-ups of the doll are clearly a weird ventriloquist’s dummy looking thing that is obviously several times longer than the doll in the far shots. The design scheme seems to be based on “what if Teddy Ruxpin was a man?”
The Baron is voice by John C. McDonnell as a wise-cracking Leprechaun-esque killer but I’m guessing they decided to really beef up his lines in reshoots because for most of the middle of the movie he seems to be voiced by a completely different actor who sounds nothing like McDonnell.
Is It Any Good?
Nooooooo, not even slightly. It would seem that the concept for this movie was “Let’s do a Leprechaun or Rumplestiltskin style supernatural slasher movie, but make it so families can watch together” which is a solid ethos except no it isn’t, that’s ridiculous.
We follow Jimmy Spencer (Tobey Maguire), rebellious teen who is sent by his frazzled mother (Laraine Newman) to spend a few days in his father Richard’s (Cliff De Young) palatial home with his grandfather (Mickey Rooney.) Unsurprisingly, Richard Spencer is a huge dick who is borderline abusive with his son and gets offed pretty quickly via bug zapper in the pool to frame Jimmy. The Baron then precedes to go around everyone connected with Jimmy after he gets some ammunition for his guns.
The movie has the music and bright colors of a movie for kids and there’s not a whole lot of blood but the movie is really dark, multiple people are gunned down (including Mad TV’s Michael McDonald as a sleazy psychologist) by a toy plane that is capable of hovering in the air like a helicopter as the wooden nightmare boy within cracks jokes about pop culture references several decades after his time.
That alone would be enough but the movie is so goofy and earnest, all the performances are dialed up to 11 and everybody’s mugging for the camera. The Baron himself is delightfully lame, see for yourself.
This is a dumb movie made halfway competently for a target audience of children with little to no taste but the conceit of a PG (it’s PG-13 but an 80s PG-13, so not actively trying to see how traumatizing they can be without a nipple or second use of the word fuck) slasher movie is too goofy to pass up and The Baron himself is joyfully hokey. Plus you get to see Tobey Maguire, Mickey Rooney, and Laraine Newman see who can act the most (spoiler: it’s Mickey Rooney) in any given scene.
Watch, Toss, or Buy?
Revenge of the Red Baron is an experience that every person needs once in a lifetime. Watch it.