Written by: G.O. Parsons
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Emily Tosta, Ric Reitz, Chris Warner, Kai Kadlec, Christian Del Grosso
Rating: [3/5]
As a child, attending places that utilized animatronics for entertainment purposes always gave me the creeps of seeing the movement of something not alive and lacking a soul. Chuck E. Cheese mostly comes to mind when thinking of this. Willy’s Wonderful takes this unsettling idea and capitalizes on turning the animatronics within a family entertainment center and making them homicidal monsters. Something I never knew was needed, but I’m glad exists.
With a flat tire needing repairing, a man (Nicholas Cage) strikes a deal with the town mechanic to have the repair done for free if the man agrees to clean the family entertainment center called Willy’s Wonderful. As the man begins to clean, he begins to notice some of the animatronics begin to move as they sneakily try to kill him.
One can never know what they will get from a Nicolas Cage movie in this millennia allowing for a sense of excitement each time his film appears on a cast list. Now in most cases, it’s within a straight-to-DVD piece of junk but at times you get something as wily and delicious as what we receive in Willy’s Wonderful as it seeks to serve all of the pulp one can handle. Haunted animatronics versus a man who does not speak, what else could someone want?
From the start, this nameless man must know some shenanigans going on, especially when the owner of the restaurant willingly made this deal and then locked the man in there indicating somethings afoot. The film later reveals exactly what occurs in this town regarding this entertainment center demonstrating something quite cynical and horrifying as a result. However, much of the focus remains in Willy’s Wonderful and how the man just wants to get on with his cleaning of this very unkept and dirty place and he just so happens to be interrupted by this homicidal animatronics. Whether he cleans the bathroom or the arcades, they certainly want to do what they can to get rid of this man, but he simply refuses to die and just annihilates each of them. With this man displaying adept skills in killing these things, this feature needs some fodder to demonstrate their true evilness, which introduces the horror genre’s favorite: teenagers.
They come in the form of Liv (Emily Tosta) and her friends determined to burn down Willy’s Wonderful because of their knowledge of something wholly haunted about the place but seeing the man in there causes them to go inside and warn him. As they enter, you have pretty much every stereotype of teenage horror characters who will assuredly die. Yes, the sexually active couple who try to get it on in one of the rooms in the entertainment center will die, which should not feel like a spoiler to point out. They interact with the man making for some comedic instances where they try to warn him about the reality he has already experienced about Willy’s Wonderful, but this man sticks to his word to clean the place in exchange for a fixed car. He will not let it go.
When it comes to the utilization of these animatronics, the team who assembled them deserves the credit for crafting these figures that would realistically exist in an entertainment center like this one but also terrify the life out of anyone if they even began to move. Toeing that line much like good ol’ Chuck E. Cheese did where under the right light you can see why kids love that incredibly large rat but you could also see that thing savagely murder someone if they revealed the truth about the pizza in the establishment. Whether or not that serves as the inciting incident of why these particular animatronics go on occasional killing sprees remains something to be seen and for audience members to find out.
Completely to the point and wildly enjoyable for what it is, Willy’s Wonderful gives us the opportunity to watch a mute Nicholas Cage savagely fend off and kill homicidal animatronics. One could argue not having Cage say a word throughout this feature does a disservice in even casting him because of some kooky line delivery he could have delivered, but sometimes what we get suffices just enough. This film provides the type of pulpy entertainment one could throw on for an enjoyable evening and make you think twice about stepping into that mouse’s house late at night.
Films with Josh 