Thursday, June 19, 2008

Dolls

     Dolls... I hate dolls. They're creepy enough without being in a horror movie. Despite having a terribly tight budget, this horror movie is remarkably well done and very effective. 

      Judy is a little girl about 8 years old, traveling with her dad and stepmother (two total assholes). Judy also has an amazing imagination. When her bitch stepmother Rosemary throws Judy's teddy bear away, she envisions Teddy coming back as a huge fanged bear that tears Rosemary to pieces. Great kid, huh. 

      Anyway, while traveling they get caught in a storm and seek shelter at an old house just down the road. The owners of the house at first greet them with a shotgun, but after seeing that they have a child with them, they have a change of heart. An old couple named Gabriel and Hilary live in the house and Gabriel is a dollmaker. His creepy dolls are all over the house and when he sees that Judy does not have a doll (since Rosemary ditched her teddy) he offers her a jester doll named Punch (remember Punch and Judy, they were a pair of French puppets that beat the hell out of each other to make kids laugh, circa the 1960s). 

      Out of the storm arrive three more people. A man named Ralph (a sweet giant teddy bear of a kid himself) and two young female hitchhikers (Madonna look-a-likes named Isabel and Enid) that he's picked up along the way. At first, they plan to steal Ralph's wallet, but when they see all the antiques around the house, they decide to rob the old couple instead. 

      Meanwhile, Gabriel's creepy-ass dolls occasionally blink and smile (when they smile, fangs are present), and also whisper to each other. During the night, Isabel goes on a five-finger discount hunt for "antikies". She is accosted by the dolls who smash her head into a wall repeatedly until her face is mush, then drag her into another room. Judy witnesses this and tells Ralph that the fairies killed the girl. Poor Ralph is accused of killing Isabel and of also being a pervert for having bonded with Judy. 

       After way too long of a wait, the bitch stepmother Rosemary is finally killed by the dolls, bloody and satisfying. She really deserved a much more gruesome death though, cuz she absolutely was the quintessential bitch. Enid sneaks out to find Isabel and catches the old woman pushing a bunch of dolls in a baby stroller... creepy. She eventually finds Isabel, but something is terribly wrong with her. She's huddled in a dark room whispering to Enid to get away. Enid persists only to find that Isabel is being transformed into a doll, complete with googly doll eyes that occasionally fall out. Enid runs away only to be shot dead by an army of toy soldiers.  

     Rosemary is found with half her head missing and again poor Ralph is blamed. The old couple turns out to be witches (duh) and Judy's father goes on a doll-smashing spree, including Judy's new doll "Punch". When the dolls are smashed, their doll faces crumble and fall away to reveal green slimy gremlin faces underneath. As punishment for smashing the dolls, Judy's father is shrunken and reduced to another Punch doll to replace the one her father smashed. 

      Ralph and Judy wake up and are told some cock and bull story about how Judy's father and stepmother have ditched her and left with the two hitchhikers. They are also told that a plane ticket has been left for Judy to return to her real mother and a second plane ticket was left for Ralph to make sure that Judy gets home safely. As they are driving away, Judy asks Ralph if he ever wanted a daughter and that when he finally meets her, he will really like her mom... awwwww. 

      All the people that were killed during the night are seen as dolls on the mantle. Apparently, Judy is not killed because she is a child and relates to dolls and Ralph is saved because he is a kid at heart. As the credits roll, another car is seen getting stuck in the mud, eluding to the fact that the dolls were all real people that had accidentally happened upon two weirdo witches with a doll fetish. Great 80's fun with a true creepiness to it.  Well, at least for me because I freaking HATE dolls!