Toys in the Attic

I mean really, I stand in awe.I didn't know, at first, that this was by Jiri (pronounced kind of like "Year-zhee") Barta. That would have sold me right then, since Czech animators and Barta in particular display senses of the macabre, joyous, heroic, delicate, and mysterious all at once. (Since so many of them worked, or tried to, during the Soviet oppression, that seems rather natural.)This, like any brilliant work of art, works at many levels. Physically the puppets and objects combine Svankamjer's sensibilities with Joseph Cornell's supply closet. In image creation, Barta melds live action with flip-books (or something close), stop animation, overdrawing, and I don't know what-all in computer animation and postproduction. The stop-animated puppets, however, embody unique personalities in their materials, structure, and articulation, even before you hear them speak,Skipping ahead, I have to applaud the English language rendering. Taken in itself, it expresses the characters and helps bring them to life, even though English was never considered when the movie's original Czech version came out. But, the English is dubbed so it syncs to Czech mouth movements (mostly). This involved heroics on the parts of the scriptwriters, voice actors, and sound masters to create some cadence that a lip-reader might believe.Backing up to the original, though, this represents a rather daring fable of personal freedom against the militarists, something Barta lived through before the Velvet Revolution. The plaster talking head had some reality in the Stalin era, and the spies and operatives remained real until the Stasi got their pink slips.Behind and in front of everything else, though, this stands out as a major artwork, masterfully crafted and carrying more meaning than any one reading can disclose. I've admired Barta's art before. This, however, impresses me in more different ways than I can hope to name.-- wiredweird

Great film! My son and I are fans of offbeat stop motion animation and found this film to be a real gem. We discovered it at our library and was happy to buy it. I think $5 is a bargain for this movie. My five year old loves this movie, but I could however imagine some little kids finding some of the characters spooky. I recommend guardians viewing it first and deciding from there. If you are interested in something out of the norm this film is it.

Fabulous movie, using weird old crap in an attic. Victorian doll, overfed bear, weird knight puppet, and animate turd-with-bottlecap defeat perverted plaster bust (With animate gloves, eye on cable, and various minions). Then they all eat cake. In between grandma and kid do laundry, several floods and furniture climbing happen, various train and airline wrecks occur, and Marie Curie reincarnates as a mechanistic mouse.

Toys in the Attic is a Beautiful work of art. The animation is very detailed. It shows a good point of view from a toys life.

This was a little like watching Gumby. Yes, it was Claymation and the toys looked a little creepy to me, but my 6 year old daughter somehow enjoyed it so I have to give it at least a 4-star. She's actually watched it at least 3 x now since I've bought it for Christmas. The story does at least have a good moral value to it so that makes up for the creepy appearance of some of the characters. It has a very old European feel to it, lol. The main character is an old porcelain doll which creeps me out to begin with, but don't judge me on that. I've probably seen Chucky too many times.

This movie is a definite children's movie. It would bore an adult to death. Would recommend not to purchase if you have no children. Seller mailed fast with no issues. 5 STARS!

Horrible movie. Felt like torcher having to sit through this movie. I can't imagine anyone liking this movie. Just watch the preview - I should have known if the preview sucks the movie has no chance of being any better. I want my $3.99 back.

But "Different" certainly does not make it great. At one point, early in the movie I said to my grand daughter "This is weird, and weird enough that I HAVE to keep watching," We both liked it, but neither of us loved it. We give it a grade of C+BTW...I was sure we ordered the HD download version, but on our smart TV it was 4;3 letterbox, not widescreen, and did not appear to be in HD. That was dissapointing