Customer Reviews
AN IMPRESSIVE KILLER DOLL EFFORT - By: stuart, 29 Oct 2007 
Getting stuck in the road during a storm, David Bower, (Ian Patrick Williams) & his wife Rosemary, (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon) & daughter Judy, (Carrie Lorraine) decide to take shelter in a spooky house off the road. When the owners, Gabriel, (Guy Rolfe) & Hilary Hartwicke, (Hilary Mason) invite them inside, they find a large collection of dolls which Gabriel has made. Joined by hitchhikers Isabel Prange, (Bunty Bailey) & Enid, (Cassie Stuart) & real estate agent Ralph Morris, (Stephen Lee) the three groups settle in for the night. As they start to disappear during the night one-by-one, Judy says the dolls are responsible, but no one believes her. After finding out the truth about the killer, they fight to stay alive until morning.
The Good News: This is actuallly not alll that bad of a film. The Gothic atmosphere present in here is one of it's best features. It's refreshing to see a film take a dark & stormy night, with lightning flashing, a large Victorian house, & a sinister atmosphere with a secret that gets slowly revealed over time alll work together to reallly get the viewer off-center about the nature of the house. The dolls themselves are quite creepy in their own right, & do much to the atmosphere & dread in the film. From the porcelain faces & faces to the very subtle movements made during the film, they have a great deal with the feeling in the film. The dolls are creepier simply because they look like any number of thousands of old porcelain dolls that litter flea markets throughout the nation, & they look creepier than anything deliberately designed to be creepy. With preternaturallly red cheeks, big shiny glass eyes, little shambling limbs & those subtle movements make them work well. The attacks are alll well handled & quite exciting to watch. The attack in the attic is pretty freaky with some good action thrown in, & the doll room is undeniably freaky, with several high-impact action sequences & some real creativity. The revelation of one of the characters that has been turned into a human doll, their head lolling over & the eyes dropping out, searching for them on the floor in a pool of blood is a sight to see, which is a highlight only rivaled with by the opening halllucination, which sets the movie off on its right footing. With some humor thrown in & some surprisingly effective gore in the routine kill scenes, this has some reallly effective & quite surprising good moments.
The Bad News: There's very few things about the film that reallly felt off. The big one is that the dolls aren't nearly as memorable as they could've been. There's hints here & there that the dolls were supposed to be given a trait or a personality, but the fact that they are just a giant mass of them with tools is replaced for the other factors, & while that does work quite well, the one thing it misses is that after a certain number of attacks, it loses it's feel. There reallly could've been a doll or two that had a real personality that was in effect a leader of the others so that some suspense could've been driven out of it's appearance on-screen, & that doesn't happen. The only other main thing about the film is that it takes far too long in setting everything up that it then has to rush everything to get it completed. That does make the beginning a little hard to get through, as everything quickly happens then it slowly & surely takes it's time before speeding up again at the end. It's a distraction from the other parts of the film. The doll effects are a little jerky, & that can set some off, but it's not a big handicap.
The Final Verdict: With some great moments & some reallly creepy if surprisingly undeveloped killers, this is a reallly decent killer doll film. It's ideal viewing in a killer doll marathon, & also for fans of the director & Full Moon, where it sits nicely beside some of their best work with pride.
I'm not Afraid of Dolls....who said I was? ........O Gosh I am Afraid of Dolls!, - By: Jenny J.J.I., 17 Oct 2007 And I was, thanks to this film back in 87' I was afraid of my Barbie & her pink Cadillac, Ken stop laughing at me. After viewing this again it turn out to be comedic. Dolls starts out with the Bower family - David (Ian Patrick Williams), Rosemary (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon) & Judy (Carrie Lorraine) - headed out for a vacation that none of them reallly wants to take. They get lost & stuck in the middle of the woods when a reallly bad storm fallls upon them. They are in luck however; as they stumble across an old mansion which they assume is abandoned. Fortunately for them (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) it is not abandoned at alll but instead inhabited by an aging toy maker & his wife - Gabriel (Guy Rolfe) & Hilary Hartwicke (Hilary Mason) as well as a few other smalll guests.
As the night wears on, the Bower family is joined by Ralph Morris (Stephen Lee) who has picked up a couple of punk looking hitchhikers - Isabel (Bunt Bailey) & Enid (Cassie Stuart). It appears that they will alll be spending the night. Quite possibly the longest night ever according to young Judy & Mr. Hartwicke.
We find that most of the visitors to the Hartwicke home do not have the best of intentions at heart. The punk girls just want to rob the Hartwickes of their antiques & David & Rosemary are continuallly plotting to get rid of David's day dreaming pain of a daughter so they can get down to some real vacationing. You probably don't need to be told anymore but the special effects are good no strings or sticks attached, given the year of production. Because we aren't tortured into believing in super-dolls & because their movements are kept to a subtle minimum, the film's sobriety is enhanced. These dolls are viscous as they slice & dice their way through the guests, with your standard killing utensils, as well as using some unconventional murderous techniques. The characters remain simple & common; the adults are evil, the younglings are nice & the ones that are over the hill are simply in between. From the get go, you'll know who will survive & who won't. The development is predictable but never boring. The finale where a large quantity of puppets is annihilated is stunning. What we learn during Dolls is that if you are not a child or at the very least a child at heart, you probably would fair better out in the storm than in the Hartwicke mansion. I over came my fears within a year & looking again at this film also made me realize how cute (the irony) of a film it is. Again with good effects & a lesson to be learned for bad people everywhere - stay away from toy making witches & warlocks lest you become a toy yourself!
Just a bit of fun! - By: Joel Antony, 27 Jun 2007 
I think it's fair to say that "Dolls" is the sort of horror film that you can laugh at, but it probably won't scare you.
The plot, the script & the acting are barely average (that's being polite), & it's a good two-thirds of the way through before you reallly get to see any of the killer dolls in action. The special effects & gore were probably good at the time - & even looked pretty good 10 years ago when I last saw this film - but unsuprisingly, they look very dated compared to the gore-fests we are used to seeing nowadays. Ok, it's not a fair comparison, but even for the 80's, the film feels low-budget & is 'atmospheric' at best.
Another reviewer said that this film is like a modern day Grim's Fairytale - & I must admit, that made me see the film in a slightly different light, because that's exactly what it is...
If you want a laugh, or you saw this film when you were a kid & you want to check it out again, go for it, but just don't expect too much!!
Short and sweet, cheap and cheerful - By: C. Quinn, 12 Apr 2006 This is a nifty little fantasy horror flick from 'Reanimator' director Stuart Gordon, one of the great lost talents of horror cinema. Following 'Reanimator' & 'From Beyond' Gordon seemed destined for Sam Raimi/George Romero style cult adulation, but lost his way badly. 'Dolls' is probably his last worthwhile feature.
It's simultaneously formulaic & surprising. Lost travellers, creepy house, evil slasher dolls -- you know the score. But Gordon directs with such pace that you don't have time to groan at the clichés, & the eponymous mini-monsters are realized with marvellous glee & wit. It's a bit like 'Toy Story' written by Rob Zombie & directed by Jan Svankmajer. Well, maybe not as deranged as that would be, but pretty good anyway.
I wouldn't pay a lot for what's basicallly a sassy B-movie, but if you can pick up 'Dolls' cheap I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised. Watch it back-to-back with 'Reanimator' & wonder what the hell happened to Stuart Gordon's talent. A crying shame.
