"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Dolls

After Stuart Gordon’s opening one-two punch of RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND, he did his first non-H.P.-Lovecraft picture, DOLLS. Produced by Charles Band two years before PUPPET MASTER, it sort of invents the template for his killer doll movies. The script is by Ed Naha, the first editor of Fangoria, who’s another important figure in the history of miniature cinema, having written TROLL, DOLLMAN and (with Gordon) HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS. He also wrote the regular-sized CHUD II and OMEGA DOOM.

The story here is your basic trapped-in-a-spooky-mansion-during-a-storm yarn. A little girl named Judy (Carrie Lorraine, POLTERGEIST II and one episode of ALF), her dad David (Ian Patrick Williams, RE-ANIMATOR, ROBOT JOX, KING OF THE ANTS) and uptight step-mom Rosemary (Carolyn Purdy Gordon, RE-ANIMATOR, FROM BEYOND, ROBOT JOX, THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, FORTRESS, STUCK) are driving somewhere in the woods or some shit, their car gets stuck in the mud, so they go knock on the door of the nearest gothic mansion.

It intentionally plays like a fairy tale. Rosemary is nothing if not a wicked stepmother – she even looks a little like the evil queen from SNOW WHITE. She openly hates Judy (and most people). She’s so mean she takes the kid’s teddy bear (her best friend, she says) and tosses it into a tree for no reason. And Judy’s dad doesn’t say shit about it, so fuck him too. This act of senseless cruelty does at least lead to a bizarre fantasy sequence where Judy imagines a giant Teddy growing teeth and claws and mauling the grownups. “Oh, Teddy,” she moans. He looks at her, his maw smeared in grue, and gives a comical shrug.

When nobody answers the door at the mansion the family break into a basement, where they are discovered by the seemingly-nice-but-also-kind-of-menacing old couple that lives there, Gabriel (Guy Rolfe, SNOW WHITE AND THE THREE STOOGES, MR. SARDONICUS, PUPPETMASTER III, 4, 5 and RETRO) and Hilary (Hilary Mason, DON’T LOOK NOW) Hartwicke. So there’s a certain Goldilocks or Hansel and Gretel factor there. But this fairy tale’s morality seems to have to do with the importance of childlike imagination. The visiting adults all suck because they dismiss Judy’s fantasies and hate dolls. Only Ralph (Stephen Lee, THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM), who also stays in the house after getting stranded with two hitchhikers, Isabel (Bunty Bailey, the girl from A-ha’s “Take On Me” video) and Enid (Cassie Stuart, SLAYGROUND, AMADEUS), is portrayed as a good guy, and it’s only because he has nostalgia for playing with toys as a kid.

“You like toys, do you?”

“Ah yes, but it’s too bad we have to outgrow them, isn’t it?”

At the end (SPOILER) the dolls let him live after “trying to decide if you’re an adult or a kid,” as Judy explains. He says “I’ve been trying to figure that out for years.”

I’m not the most grown of grown ups, but some of what is supposed to be charming about Ralph I find kind of embarrassing. He talks fondly about a childhood memory of his dad telling him that his toys came to life at night, and him staying up to see it happen. I mean, what kind of a dad tells a kid that, and what kind of a kid believes it, and what kind of an adult thinks it’s cute to wax nostalgic about being that dumb? I don’t know about you, Ralph.

But they are not peers. There’s a funny joke about Judy being a kid who doesn’t know anything. Ralph thinks wounds from a doll attack are rat bites. “My luck, they’re rabid,” he says.

“I like rabbits,” says Judy.

Because Ralph is the closest thing to another kid for Judy to talk to, he’s the only one she can turn to when she notices supernatural shit, and the only one who is willing to hear her out. There’s a scene where she comes into his room at night while he’s in bed and he just acts like it’s normal, like he’s her dad or something, and then there’s a long section where he’s snooping around the house alone with this little girl, and it just seems so inappropriate, even though we know it’s innocent. I was actually relieved when Judy’s dad finally notices, calls Ralph a pervert and says Judy has to stay in his and Rosemary’s room. (It doesn’t help Ralph’s case when Judy whines, “I wanna stay with Ralph! He’s my friend!”)

Lest we think David is a good dad, though, he decides to punish her disobedience by threatening to “tear this doll to shreds!” and then trying to do just that. The worst part of it is what kind of a psycho punishes his daughter by destroying her doll, but the second worst part is that it’s a doll hand-made by, and on loan from, their generous host Gabriel. The third worst part is that the movie later indicates it’s a living human, now trapped in doll form.

Isabel’s style seems like a copy of early Madonna, but Enid’s seems like a precursor to Marla in FIGHT CLUB. Basically, they’re supposed to be some kind of punks, which, being 1987, meant they were gonna be up to no good. They seem to be leading Ralph on to think he might get with them, but really they plan to steal his wallet and car and any antiques they can find in the house. (Though Enid has some misgivings about these things.) This criminality may be what leads to their doom, or it may just be that Isabel shoved a bunch of dolls off of a mantel to put her boombox there.

Unsurprisingly the doll attacks (which start a half an hour in) are the best parts. Like CHILD’S PLAY a year later there are some effective uses of off-screen or barely-glimpsed scampering li’l bastards. They drag Isabel and bash her face against the wall and we see it partly with a point-of-view shot ramming the wall, pulling back, seeing the bloody spot, bashing again. Unlike PUPPET MASTER, which has a handful of doll characters with different gimmicks, this is a house full of dozens, maybe hundreds of dolls, they aren’t really distinct characters. But they have weird, bug-eyed expressions which work really well for creepy, sometimes funny closeup reaction shots to remind us that they’re watching and judging these assholes at all times. And you do sometimes see them move through puppetry or stop motion, coming after people with little knives and sharp BARBARELLA-doll teeth and shit. The makeup effects are by FRIDAY THE 13TH VII director John Carl Buechler, who’d worked with Gordon on his previous two films and whose ugly-little-creature work over the years includes TROLL (also director), GHOULIES, GARBAGE PAIL KIDS, DEMONIC TOYS and THE GINGERDEAD MAN.

It’s cool that (SPOILER) Isabel turns into a human-sized doll. But the weirdest part is when Enid is fighting a bunch of them and she smashes their porcelain faces, and they have slimy little heads on the inside. It looks like they’re little ghoulies or critters or something, they just wear doll parts as armor. But I think maybe it means they’re alive and the doll face is their skin. What we’re seeing is the living doll equivalent of skinless Frank or Julia in HELLRAISER.

It’s also like a fairy tale in that it’s a fucked up happy ending. Gabriel and Hilary give Judy a fake letter claiming her dead/dolled parents have decided to move away to another country and change their names and she has to go live with her mother now. She’s okay with this and promises to come visit the mansion on vacations.

After revisiting RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND and then seeing PIT AND THE PENDULUM (plus the sci-fi FORTRESS) it became clear that Gordon is a real-deal Master of Horror. He’s a well known name, and RE-ANIMATOR is pretty iconic, but I still think he’s hugely under-recognized considering the originality and high quality of his work.

That said, DOLLS is weaker than any of the others I’ve listed here. Some of it is small stuff, awkward things, like scenes where they’re stumbling around unable to see in the dark, but it’s shot in the not-very-dark. Or at least looks that way on the Blu-Ray transfer. But it’s mostly in the conception – an overall lazier idea, story, characters. They’re all just types, and they’re mostly people we’re not supposed to like, and I’m glad the young protagonist who we are supposed to like is not one of these way-too-precocious kids who talks like an adult, but I also have trouble relating to a whining little kid who thinks the killer dolls are fairies.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing that it’s so much simpler than his other movies, but it does matter that the characters are so basic and obvious, that their behavior is weird in less interesting ways, that the things they go through are much more generic. You’ve never seen a story like RE-ANIMATOR anywhere else, but you’ve seen this shit in a thousand movies, sitcoms, cartoons, etc.

Except for the teddy bear part. That kinda stands alone. But it’s the only thing to imply Judy is an interesting person and it happens at the very beginning.

But yeah, the dolls are cool as hell, and it’s certainly very good compared to many other Charles Band little guy pictures. Gordon hasn’t directed a huge number of movies, so I think I need to go through and review the rest of them before too long.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 24th, 2017 at 11:36 am and is filed under Horror, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

38 Responses to “Dolls”

  1. Man, the commercial for this movie scared the crap out of me as a kid.

  2. The Teddy scene is immortal in the Burton household. I like Re-Animator and From Beyond better but that might be my favorite moment of Gordon’s career. Stephen Lee is great in this too. The “KILLER DOLLS!” scene gets me every time.

  3. Personally I love this movie a lot, I think the cliche characters are forgivable given the fairy tale feel to the movie, in fact I think the tone of the movie is perfect, creepy as hell and pretty gory but at the same time has this innocent childlike vibe, it’s probably the most gory, intense horror movie you might still be ok with showing to kids because in the end everything works out fine and you can have a laugh about it.

    I think it also helps how creepy you find the idea of little antique dolls coming to life and fucking murdering your ass and personally I find the idea quite creepy, this movie taps into that childhood fear of dolls coming to life and exploits it perfectly, there’s something about the juxtaposition of childhood innocence and horror that is really effectively creepy to me, a good recent example of that is the movie KRAMPUS.

  4. In fact I’d even go as far as saying this is my favorite Stuart Gordon joint, while RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND may be better and I do indeed love them, DOLLS is the one that legit creeps me out the most.

  5. Stuart Gordon is a goddamn legend. His work runs the gamut from family films to horror, all with something to recommend about them, some of them all-time classics. You can tell he put a little bit of his soul into each one, even though most barely had theatrical releases. The world does not deserve him.

  6. I really enjoy this one’s puckish blend of childlike whimsy and merciless slaughter. I really dig the hypocrisy of its central message: Be sweet and innocent or we will gut you like a fucking fish.

    Vern, if you’re looking for some lesser-known Gordon to review (and once you get past RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND, aren’t they all lesser-known Gordon?) look no further than CASTLE FREAK. It’s a real nasty piece of work that scratched my itch for take-no-prisoners horror in an era when horror tended to take a lot of prisoners and then, like, release those prisoners back into the wild with an apology and cab fare. I don’t know where I’m going with this metaphor but suffice it to say CASTLE FREAK isn’t fucking around when it comes to prisoners. This is gonna sound like faint praise, but it’s easily the best movie Full Moon ever put out.

  7. I guess it’s time to revisit Castle Freak.

  8. Especially given your recent experience with the EVIL BONG VS GINGERDEAD MAN series.

  9. Serious question for everyone: What is with Charles Band and his fixation on dolls and other little killers?

  10. He’s said that he always had a fascination with the concept of dolls, toys, puppets, etc. coming to life, but I suspect what started out as genuine interest became more of a brand trademark over time.

  11. That’s a good question.

  12. CASTLE FREAK is another Stuart Gordon B-movie gem on par with PIT AND THE PENDULUM, FORTRESS or any of the others Vern has reviewed.

  13. Has anyone seen DAGON? It’s early 00s so I’m sure it lacks the great atmosphere of his 80s Lovecraft adaptions, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not still worth watching.

  14. Sorry guys but Dagon is not good.

  15. I disagree. DAGON is really good, although it suffers from a “Wait, that’s it? I guess they ran out of money” ending.

  16. I would also reccomend (and be excited for a review of) Castle Freak.

  17. DAGON is fucking awesome. even the bizarro Jeffrey Combs actor that Gordon replaced actual Jeffrey Combs with is pretty good in it. plus the “skinned alive” scene can hold its own against any other currently out there for the taking, including the one in our beloved TCM2.

  18. I thought DAGON was a huge disappointment. It meanders and the lead is a total drip. I guess I should rewatch it.

  19. I just watched this for the first time last night. It’s cool to see a horror movie where it isn’t teen promiscuity that’s punished, but the corruption of becoming a boring adult.

  20. I’ll give Dagon another shot.

  21. I’m team-DAGON is not good.

    On topic: DOLLS is good. A nice little horror title that brings us back to a more innocent time when Charles Band gave a shit and at TRIED. I also second the recommendation of CASTLE FREAK.

  22. i’d have thought it scientifically impossible for someone to be down on DAGON but up on CASTLE FREAK, yet here we are. we’ll get there one of these days, geoffreyjar.

  23. I think DAGON and CASTLE FREAK are both good. So there.

  24. as do i, my friend. as do i.

  25. Fine I’ll give DAGON a re-watch! Will that make you happy!? No! Because you’re never happy!

  26. Mix, this one is for you!

    A review of Dagon (2001)

    ---This review is dedicated to outlawvern.com commenter 1-900-MIXALOT who (jokingly) gave me shit for not liking this one but recommending the director's CASTLE FREAK still. He also got me hyped for VVITCH and ALIEN COVENANT so I can never forgive him. That said he's a good guy* and fellow brother-in-arms with the 'A CURE FOR WELLNESS is a pretty good movie and f*** everyone (including us) for not supporting that and LONE RANGER and now Gore Verbinski is actually considering directing a f******* GAMBIT movie to keep his career afloat' pact. Thus 1-900-MIXALOT reminds me that people are complex beings

  27. i’m honoured! thank you! i’m glad you came around on it a little bit with this viewing otherwise i would have felt bad for jokingly goading you into watching it again. and fear not, your good guy endorsement holds water. probably my worst major trait is that i’m vegan but not one of THOSE vegans so even though i’m low key and stay in the cut with it i am regrettably associated with one of the most insufferable groups of people on the planet.

  28. You’re welcome. I decided to go vegan last year after stomach problems cropped up and doesn’t like to process anything anymore. Since going vegan I haven’t had any issues. Doctors say I check out and am healthy so I assume I’m something right. Helps that I humored the idea a few times the last few years, then I watch movies like OKJA and I become a weiner and just can’t do the meat thing anymore.

    I was afraid maybe something would come and have something similar to the following exchange:
    ‘Your background-check is negative you once called a MIXALOT a good guy
    ‘Well yeah from what I know…
    ‘Are you aware that MIXALOT is….
    ‘Well shit how was I supposed to know?
    ‘Sir, his avatar is clearly bondage gimp or something… with a balloon apprentice of some sort
    ‘Well shit man, we all got our kinks

    Good to know that won’t happen. Seriously though, I do take your recommendations seriously. Just like I do Sternshein even post-BABY DRIVER.

  29. So I have this tradition that whenever an actor or director I really admire goes down, I go out and buy a dvd of one of their movies that I never got around to seeing. I couldn’t tell you how long I’ve been doing this but I definitely have a copy of NOBEL SON that I bought to honor Alan Rickman.

    Anyway, I obviously can’t go out and buy a dvd right now or I’ll die, but I still wanted to honor that tradition. And so, after a sleepless night of watching ’80s Italian Horror movies I finally felt loopy enough to engage with DOLLS fairy tale-ness and finally give it a watch (It’s on A***** Prime right now). And I quite liked it! It sped along at such a brisk pace that it’s honestly pretty hard to find any faults with it at all! I mean, yeah, the parents were completely unbearable, but that was the point. Seriously, tho, worst movie parents ever. I’d rather have dinner with the Sawyers than these miserable assholes, no question. But the FX were quite inventive and mostly hold up even today (I don’t have a huge HD television, tho, so I could be wrong. I’m also sleep-deprived.)

    So yeah, not as good as his first two, of course, but not bad at all. And it’s got the babe from that A-ha video in it, and I’ve literally never seen her in anything else. So it’s got that going for it. Which is nice.

  30. DAGON sounds pretty cool from Vern’s review, but what is the movie to see before you die of this guy’s — besides RE-ANIMATOR, which I’ve seen a couple times?

  31. Most will say FROM BEYOND but CASTLE FREAK gets my vote.

  32. Cool, will check those out and report back. And I still have yet to see COLOUR OUT OF SPACE, too!

  33. I found CASTLE FREAK very dull, despite the talent involved. Maybe ,like DAGON,it requires another sleepdrived night for my mind to gel with it properly.

  34. It does have its doldrums, I’ll admit it. FROM BEYOND is probably a safer bet for someone wanting a pure dose of high-test Gordonness.

  35. Seconding CASTLE FREAK. Gets shockingly nasty at times!

  36. Storywise, I remember CASTLE FREAk was pretty nasty though. But Gordon had an entire castle to work with if I remember right and it mostly felt empty. Not everyone is a Mario Bava who knows how to utilize castle atmosphere I guess.

    I think I need to revisit this film though. It did have its moments.

  37. Yeah, but it was a castle Charles Band could afford. That makes it like the Motel 6 of castles. I bet Bava had access to the good castles. The Howard Johnson castles. You can’t do Bava atmosphere in a Band castle. Nobody’s that good.

  38. I can not argue with that logic. An empty castle is an empty castle. You got me there.

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