Fred Olen May: EVIL TOONS And Its Many, Many References

Of Fred Olen Ray’s extensive filmography, outside of his string of Hallmark Christmas movies, EVIL TOONS is by far my favorite. I was a huge fan of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT growing up and of any film that could stuff in as many references as the script allowed, which inevitably led me to EVIL TOONS. Being a film on a $140k budget and with the only household name attached being David Carradine, the movie wasn’t a critical success, but the number of references to other horror greats makes it highly worth a watch for any genre fan!

Right out the gate, we are shown a few frames stating that the movie we were about to watch was a depiction of true events that reminded me of John Larroquette’s intro to THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE that warned audiences that the film depicted events based on a true story.

If the intro wasn’t a sign that we were in for a wild parody much of the horror genre, the audience is settled into easter eggs very quickly as we’re greeted by David Carradine’s character, Gideon Fisk. Fisk himself is stylized in such a way that he looks like an old-school version of The Tall Man from PHANTASM. In addition to similarity in appearance, he looms in the background of a good amount of the movie without much knowledge of his motivations, which also invokes commonality with The Tall Man.

Fisk’s introduction also gives the audience the most on-the-nose reference where there’s a skin-clad book that looks identical to the Necronomicon from Lovecraft and the EVIL DEAD films. The book is filled with evil secrets in Latin that lead to the main events of the film.

I could draw the line for the tropes of a horror movie group of female friends to pretty much any 1980s horror film that could’ve influenced this movie, but the recent 2021 straight-to-TV SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE clearly defined the group into categories that can be retrofitted for this movie–the “mom” friend is Terry, the “slut” friend is Roxanne, the “smart” friend is Megan, and the “cynical yet scared” friend is Jan. While we aren’t given much history about the friend group, they fit right loosely along with friend groups like FRIDAY THE 13TH, HALLOWEEN, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and more.

There are passing horror literary references to The Frankenstein Wheel by Paul W. Fairman when Terry is reading it on the couch and when she refers to the cursed book as the “Transylvania Yellow Pages” to give Dracula a shoutout.

The movie even fits in references to BACK TO THE FUTURE with a character named Biff; THE WIZARD OF OZ with the book burning at the end of the movie and proclaiming that it’s “melting;” and makes a smooth reference to BLACK CHRISTMAS with a character questioning whether the killer could be within the house unbeknownst to the characters staying there.

There were probably more references, but EVIL TOONS begs to be rewatched again and again because I have caught an increasing number of references every time I revisit it! The inclusion of Dick Miller alone—who watches himself as Walter Paisley in Corman’s classic A BUCKET OF BLOOD—guarantees a whole laundry list of nods and winks.

Fred Olen Ray clearly wanted to make a love letter to the horror genre while honoring WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT and even it isn’t one of his biggest or most well-known films, it’s my favorite because of the charm it has and the excuse it provides to go back and watch the movies it refers to in its stuffed, yet sleek, 90-minute runtime.