D: Martin Kitrosser. Jane Higginson, William Thone, Tracy Fraim, Mickey Rooney, Brian Bremer, Neith Hunter, Clint Howard. Toys are out to kill a little boy at Christmastime, but who’s respon- sible? Drunken toymaker Petto (Rooney) or his odd son Pino? (The names are clumsy clues.) Overplotted but OK horror thriller with a lot of sex. No plot connection to earlier films in series. [R]

D: Lee Harry. Eric Free- man, James L. Newman, Elizabeth Kaitan. Embarrassing (and unnecessary) follow-up to the Santa Claus-killer film has hero’s younger brother continuing the psychotic carnage. About half the footage here is lifted from the original film (including a memorable scene featuring Linnea Quigley); new scenes are perfunctory. [R]

D: John Woo. Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung, Teresa Mo, Philip Chan, Anthony Wong, Kwan Hoi-Shan, A-Lung. Stylish, ultra-violent story of police inspector (Yun-Fat) who teams up with a mysterious hit man (Leung) to stop a gang of arms dealers. Standard plot of revenge and male bonding is springboard for unbelievable action sequences that are bloody, comic, and hypnotic. Yun-Fat is a perfectly assured hero, and director Woo (who wrote the original story) appears as a bartender.

D: David Cronenberg. Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, Art Hindle, Cindy Hinds, Nuala Fitzgerald, Susan Hogan. Eggar eats her own afterbirth while midget clones beat grandparents and lovely young schoolteachers to death with mallets. It’s a big, wide, wonderful world we live in! [R]