Dolls

"Dolls" (1987, Stuart Gordon, Empire Pictures) is a killer doll movie.


Little Judy Bower (Carrie Lorraine) is an unlucky tyke. Her parents are divorced and she's stuck on holiday with her selfish father, David (Ian Patrick Williams), and his new wife, Rosemary (Carolyn Purdy Gordon) - the epitome of wicked stepmother and lover of hair wraps.


After their trip is cut short due to a thunderstorm, the family seek shelter in a nearby house; that of elderly puppet-maker, Gabriel Hartwicke (Guy Rolfe) and his rather dotty wife, Hilary (Hilary Mason). They are later joined by some other stranded strangers; punk girls and thieves, Isabel (Bunty Bailey) and Enid (Cassie Stuart), and the child-at-heart schmo the girls have marked as their next robbery victim, Ralph (Steven Lee). The old couple are very accommodating, giving everyone a room each for the night and offering them supper and wine. Gabriel also gifts the young Judy a Mr Punch doll upon finding out that Rosemary threw her favourite teddy bear into the woods!


But as the night wears on the dolls and puppets placed around the large house seem to move, strange voices can be heard coming from behind locked doors, people appear to go missing and suspicious bloodstains begin to appear. Are the friendly Hartwicke's up to something devious? Will Judy escape from her awful father and stepmother? What's the deal with Mr Punch? All is revealed in this fun, cheesy caper.


Despite falling into the low-budget category, "Dolls" enjoys some effects that still look good today. The doll face effects can vary in quality between props, but are pretty good overall. There's also a variety of different little doll-monsters to enjoy and the scenes with them in are fun in a way similar to the "Puppet Master" series. There's also the added layer of watching the dolls' creation which was pretty fun.


Rolfe and Mason provide some likeable villains with an effective creep-factor, both Williams and Gordon also bring some unlikeable fodder to the tale and Bailey and Stuart provide further villains with more annoying accents. Carrie Lorraine does great work as the little leading lady and pushes the plot on with her childish curiosity and bravery.


There's a lesson in there about being a nice person, being a good parent and also about watching out for vengeful dolls. The film delivers this in a gleefully schlocky b-movie way before sending us on our way as yet another family of unhappy individuals lands themselves on the doorstep of Hartwicke's dollhouse....

[Image: Empire Pictures]

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Annabelle Comes Home

"Annabelle Comes Home" (2019, Gary Dauberman, New Line Cinema, Atomic Monster Productions, The Safran Company, Warner Bros. Pictures) is the seventh film in The Conjuring Universe created by James Wan and is the third feature film centred around the haunted doll, Annabelle, whom we were introduced to in the original The Conjuring and who is based on an actual case by the real life Ed and Lorraine Warren.

Starting from the doll being taken from the young nurses in the first Conjuring film, we follow her home to Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) Warren's locked room full of other haunted artefacts. Some time later, the Warren's daughter, Judy (McKenna Grace), is being babysat by family friend, Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) and her friend, Daniela (Katie Sarife). Unfortunately, it turns out that Daniela had other, more personal reasons for tagging along and she breaks into the artefact room searching for a way to contact the spirit of her father. Unwittingly touching everything and anything she can lay her hands on, Daniela also releases Annabelle from her blessed case allowing the doll to wreak havoc on herself, Judy, Mary Ellen and Mary Ellen's admirer, Bob (Michael Cimino) who had come to the house to serenade Mary Ellen in a badly timed attempt at seduction.

A really fun entry into a series that I feel was getting pretty tired. The very limited setting of the Warren's house makes for a good old fashioned spook house feel and the scare scenes are, in usual Wan style, well portrayed and effective. The fact that Annabelle is given the power to raise other spirits nearby makes the variety of ghosts attacking the teens and kid pretty diverse. Personally, I enjoyed the first Conjuring but felt a little cold on the subsequent films, but I found this film to be a fun ride and the first, since the original film, to spark some life back into the creepy little doll despite the doll herself getting very limited screen time. It's jumpy and a little silly - just what I wanted out a spooky doll film.

[Image: New Line Cinema, et al]

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Heidi

"Heidi" (2014, Daniel Ray, Neon Mirage, Wild Eye Releasing) is a found footage film about a haunted doll.

Two teenage YouTube pranksters find a doll in an old lady's attic and are then plagued by creepy happenings.

A found footage film which draws upon some elements of Chucky and other killer doll horrors. The idea is pretty good but the execution is mixed. But it's a low budget film, so I am inclined to be more forgiving. The build up, for instance, is pretty long winded and some of the supporting characters are not as well rounded as others, however, the main characters are pretty relatable and some of the scenes with the doll moving are pretty fun. The dolls scenes are made more effective by what they don't show. The film overall benefits from doing more with less.

At only 90 minutes the film isn't overly long, however there are scenes which felt a little drawn out. The main character also doesn't seem to get really freaked out until quite late on in the film resulting in a lot of late gore scenes. The film also goes over the same ground a few times with the doll coming back after being destroyed or disposed of over and over again. This did eventually become a little tedious.

"Heidi" has some good points, but overall loses its way and becomes a little unfocused towards the end.

[Image: Neon Mirage, et al]

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The Boy (2016)

"The Boy" (2016, William Brent Bell, Huayi Brothers Pictures, Lakeshore Entertainment, Vertigo Entertainment, STX Entertainment) is a horror thriller set in England.

Greta (Lauren Cohan) is a young American woman who's come over to England to work as a nanny for Mr. and Mrs. Heelshire (Jim Norton and Diana Hardcastle) and their son, Brahms. She arrives at the large, grand, country house to find it empty, except for the local green grocer, Malcolm (Ruper Evans), who takes a fancy to her. Eventually the Heelshire's arrive home and introduce her to her charge, Brahms, and explain her routine and responsibilities. To Greta's surprise, Brahms, is not at all what she expected and her job is weirder than she could have anticipated.

A fun, jumpy film with some nice twists and turns and a strong lead character who pulls off the scared female role and the fight or flight mode really well. The jarring change in direction the film takes could be seen as unwanted by some viewers, but I appreciated the change in pace. The setting is perfect, and although the film overuses some tropes (dream sequences, for example), it is creative, if not ground breaking. It was an enjoyable 98 minutes.

[Image: Huayi Brothers Pictures]

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Robert

"Robert" or "Robert The Doll" (2015, North Bank Entertainment, 4Digital Media, Independent Moving Pictures) is a British film about the real life doll who's story inspired the "Child's Play" series. The real doll is located in the Key West area of Florida in the USA, and I would probably say looking at an inanimate 'haunted' doll is going to be about 50 times more scary than watching this movie.

An annoying woman called Jenny (Suzie Frances Garton), who is more interested in painting than paying attention to her reclusive son, Gene (Flynn Allen), fires her aging housekeeper, Agatha (Judith Haley), because she is getting old. The disgruntled Agatha retorts by giving Gene a creepy looking doll called Robert and warning Gene that Robert will be his friend, as long as Gene doesn't upset him.

The doll then proceeds to go about making messes, spoiling Jenny's paintings and such until Jenny and her 'workaholic' husband, Paul (Lee Bane), are forced to pay attention. Jenny then seeks out Agatha's previous employers only to learn that Robert had also terrorised their household prior to them sacking Agatha.

So, it doesn't sound too bad, does it? But it is.The acting is as wooden as the doll itself. The problem I find with low budget British productions is they always wind up sounding like a badly made BBC show from the early 90s. Most of these were cheesy and charming. "Robert" is cheesy, but lacks any kind of charm. Our leading lady is so aggravating and whiney that I wanted the doll to just kill her and be done with it. And the on-screen relationship between Paul and Jenny was so disjointed and unbelievable. No wonder that kid was so reclusive! To be fair to Flynn Allen, he carries this whole film.

The doll used is creepy but also so closely resembles the Annabelle films that it makes the film look like a knock-off, which it isn't. The actual doll from the 'true' story is actually a lot creepier than the prop used on-screen.

The film is pretty low budget, so I wasn't expecting top-notch effects, but it is 2015 afterall. It could have been very effective to barely show the doll moving. Lots of films manage to make slight, simple, practical effects make a huge impact. This film, unfortunately, is not one of them. When the doll does move on-screen it is evident that it is being manoeuvred by hand (not in itself a bad thing), giving it a Muppet-like quality. When they do bother to show the doll in action, they show too much.

I have a high tolerance for bad horror, I even enjoy bad horror, but this tame effort surpasses the realms of bad-good. So, points for having a creepy prop and a good idea, but the finished product just doesn't deliver.

[Image: North Bank Entertainment]

 

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Annabelle

"Annabelle" (2014, John R. Leonetti, New Line Cinema, Atomic Monster, The Safran Company, Warner Bros. Pictures) is the follow up to "The Conjuring", this time focussing solely on Annabelle, the possessed doll.

We open the same way as we do on the film's predecessor, with the young nursing students explaining to Ed and Lorraine Warren about their dealings with the creepy doll.

But, the story isn't focussing on their incident, Annabelle's previous targets were John and Mia Form. A young professional couple, expecting their first child. John (Ward Horton) presents his wife, Mia (Annabelle Wallis), with the doll; a rare specimen for her rather large and daunting collection of creepy-ass dolls. Man, was her kid going to be traumatised!

It isn't long before creepy stuff begins. Firstly, the house is broken into by two freaky people, and they attack Mia. It transpires that the assailants are Annabelle (the girl next door) and her boyfriend, who were members of a Satanic Cult. Believing the doll, which featured in the attack, to be tainted, they throw her away. But, like Chucky, she doesn't like that and comes back...

The Forms move house to an apartment block to escape the events, but they just can't get away from the doll which finds them there. The doll inherits the moniker Annabelle after the murderous young girl (what a nice momento) and Mia, feeling safe in her new surroundings, decides to keep her....

It isn't long before the doll begins to manifest creepy happenings and other inanimate objects start being poltergeisty.

They seek help from the church and from a nice lady called Evelyn (Alfre Woodard). But the doll is after something more sinister than just scaring a few people...

With some nice jumpy bits and a good bill of characters that you can build a rapport with, this is actually a pretty good scary doll flick!

It doens't go all Chucky on us either, Annabelle is not a scuttling little maniac with a knife, she is the hiding place of something sinister.

I really haven't got anything bad to say about this film. It takes a lot of inspiration from classics, and it may not be a groundbreaking piece of horror cinema, but it does the job and it does it with class.

Just remember, spooky dollies aren't everyone's cup of tea.

[Image: New Line Cinema, et al]

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