Have you ever wanted to bitch slap your annoying child so hard you leave a handprint? Maybe not, but you will agree that Ashley’s mother has a point in the opening scenes of this film! After Ashley demands her new birthday toys early, and discards her old favourite, the old bear suddenly comes back for revenge by dragging Ashley into her toybox to meet her end.

Cut to Jack, thirty-five, still living at home (nothing wrong with that mate) and scaring away his new girlfriend Tara with the childish state of his room. Jack’s mother is preparing for his thirty-fifth birthday ‘surprise’ while his dad is trying to convince him to learn some DIY; Jack would rather play video games in his room when tragedy strikes in the kitchen: Jack’s dad is killed when his dodgy DIY shelf drops a heavy art piece on his head, which causes his mum to slip and fall face first into the cheese skewers – the many toothpicks piercing her face.

Ten months later, Jack is falling behind on the mortgage payments; Dave of Bayvista Finance graciously lowers the payments but Jack still has to make the first payment by friday. Jack heads to work at ToyBox, where Richard (who pronounces it Rishard) is top dog with his robot product Rosko; Jack’s presentation falls flat when his robot is mistakenly called A.I.D.S instead of R.A.I.D.S, he stays late to think of a new idea when Richard tells him his job is at risk. Ron, Jack’s boss, who stutters on words starting with F, begins searching for him; Jack dodges him for a moment, only to be cornered at the lift.

Ron offers Jack a new position and pay cut, rather than firing him, and Jack heads home; he begins to clear out all the childish things from his room to store in the basement – including his favourite teddy: Benny. Benny takes offence to this and comes alive, massarcering all the other toys that Jack once loved.

Jack calls the police, who are less than helpful and are only interested in Jack’s custard creams (when bourbons are the true king of biscuits). Jack heads to work where he meets Dawn, his new supervisor, who covers for him when he still doesn’t have any new ideas; back home, he ignores the messages from Dave about the payments. The next morning, he finds Dave’s head in his bed and the body in the kitchen, where Benny has made him breakfast.

The cops turn up at the door suddenly, and Jack performs the fastest crime scene cover up in history, while the cops dawdle outside and let him! They come inside to get the camera they left behind and ask about Dave, who has suddenly gone missing and his car is just down the street, unbeknownst to them that his headless body is stuffed into the cupboard behind them; when they leave, the body falls from its hiding place and Benny reveals that he’s alive. Unsure what to do, they simply bury Dave in the garden and Jack makes Benny promise not to kill again. Although, there’s the incident shortly after with a cat…

During their bonding time, Benny is watching a horror film which gives Jack an idea: Scare Bears, targeted at horror fans; with Benny as his muse, and Dawn backing the project, Jack’s new idea takes off and gives him the confidence to date Dawn. They agree on a night to get together, but Ron pressures him to dogsit his Pug, Precious, at the same time.

While at work, a realtor shows Jack’s home to Tara who immediately recognises it; while he shows her around there is foreshadowing of her coming face-to-face with Benny, who kills the realtor with the For Sale sign; Tara escapes to the loft, but has no means of calling for help. Jack returns home to a bloody mess.

Jack locks Benny in the basement again with some comics to entertain himself; however, Jack’s growing feelings for Dawn tempts the cuddly toy into escaping. Ron drops Precious off, and initially Benny chooses to ignore her – until Jack exclaims that he loves dogs in order to impress Dawn. While Benny takes care of his latest rival (poor dog!), Dawn explains that just before one of her birthdays in her childhood, her favourite doll Amy went missing; she claims her dad threw it out and he denied it, but the night before her birthday Amy suddenly appeared again, killing her parents and disappearing once more.

During her tale, Benny shows Jack what he’s done to Precious, causing him to leave Dawn while she’s talking to clean up the mess; he begins to panic, suggesting that they rearrange the date, but undeterred Dawn leads him upstairs to seduce him. Jack slips away for a moment, trying to figure out how he’s going to explain everything to his boss and searches for Benny – who is going after Dawn; to keep their secret, Jack beats the corpse of the dead dog further, making out the Pug was going to attack her, and throws it out the window onto Ron’s car.

Jack loses his job, as he leaves the building the cops are waiting and show him the pictures of Benny they found on the camera. At home, he ignores Benny, who tries to make it up with a surprise birthday party, but Jack remains angry which causes the toy to get creative: he kidnaps Ron as a present! Jack manages to twist the situation in his favour, convincing Ron to give his job back – with a pay rise – until Jack makes his boss confess that he loves being Jack’s bitch, upsetting Benny.

Last straw. Jack traps his old toy in the prop coffin for Scare Bears and buries him deep in the woods; Dawn arrives at his home to pick Benny up, initially mistaking him for the Scare Bears prototype, and the pair make up.

Benny makes his way back home and leaves threatening messages around the house that Dawn simply walks past while she gets ready for work, and Benny hitches a ride on the top of her car to follow her to work; Jack wakes soon after and realises when Benny is up to, he rushes to ToyBox where he finds Dawn, Richard and some other colleagues with Benny in the break room. Jack tries to explain that Benny is alive, and it’s only when Jack tells Richard he ‘really fucking loves’ him, that Benny becomes jealous and stabs Richard in the hand; the trio manage to escape and trap Benny in the break room…with everyone else still inside…

Back at the house, Jack explains that Benny, although sweet, is easily jealous and is after Dawn and Richard – Dawn because he loves her, and Richard because he’s a tit, all the while Benny is gearing up for his revenge and the trio begin a Home Alone style defence around the house, complete with flamethrowers and the R.A.I.D.S robot armed with an electric saw.

Jack makes Dawn wait upstairs, where she finds a gift for her from Jack – only for it to actually be from Benny, he found Amy online at an antique store. Downstairs, Jack and Richard wait for Benny, who breaks in through the toilet; they’re separated when Dawn screams for help and Jack takes on Benny with R.A.I.D.S. In another room, Rosko appears for his revenge on Richard, scorned for being dumped to take over the Scare Bears project; Rosko manages to slash Richard across the stomach and then suck out his guts with vacuum before moving on to find another victim.

As victor against R.A.I.D.S Benny corners Jack, but when Rosko tries to take the kill Benny turns on him; the pair duke it out and Jack saves Benny from Rosko with one of the traps, hoping to make amends there Benny instead heads for Dawn who has destroyed Amy.

The cops arrive as Benny takes Dawn hostage. Jack tells him that this will be the last time they see each other as he can’t follow where Jack will go; they share a sweet moment before Benny leaps through the window to face the cops, who unload BB pellets into him.

Unsure how to explain everything to anyone, Jack, Dawn and the cops pin the whole thing on the dead Richard; Jack finally decides to move on, packing everything into Dawn’s car – including the hole riddled Benny…

And Tara? She never left the loft.

5/5: I love this film so much I’m practically obsessed! Benny is so adorable in every way, I can’t wait for the recently announced doll to release. The film itself is well paced, funny in every scene – including the credits – and even tear jerking; you can tell Karl, who wrote, directed and starred in the film, put his heart and soul into this project. I cannot recommend this delightful flick enough.