Toys coming to life and causing chaos are taking over the movie biz this summer. Whether it’s the adorable best buds Buzz, Woody, and co. in Pixar’s much anticipated Toy Story 4, or something a lot more on the sinister side in the Child’s Play reboot and Annabelle Comes Home. Now Jeff Miller/Millman Productions and Uncork’d Entertainment is getting in on the toy-action with the cheesy but cheerfully horrifically grim Dolls.
The story focuses around Robert (Thomas Downey – Sorority Party Massacre, The Burning Dead), a kinda-not-really-recovering alcoholic who has just lost his mom, Edna; on top of contending with a failed marriage and a moody teenager. Moving into Edna’s old place to clear it out, his angsty 17-year-old daughter, Sammey (newcomer Trinity Simpson), comes to stay to get away from her ‘bitch of a mom’ (she says bitch a lot). The house is full of your typical old lady junk, except for maybe, ya know, the SERIOUSLY CREEPY DOLLS in the attic.
Robert introduces his daughter to the three dolls: a shiny little boy doll so sweetly embroidered with his name, Tommy, on his little blue sweater; a porcelain-faced freak of a little girl doll; and Matthew, a winking ventriloquist’s dummy doll that resembles Slappy from Goosebumps, if Slappy were the product of your nightmares’ most terrifying nightmares.
And that is where things quite predictably start getting weird. Robert and Sammey get an unexpected visit from the ominous Margaret (played by genre favourite Dee Wallace – ET, Cujo, Critters) and she does not like the dolls. One. Bit. But thinking she’s just a crazy old lady, they take no notice whatsoever of her warnings about the dolls until it’s too late. Instead, Robert continues working on his children’s book based on the dolls, but then it writes itself and the ending, in his story and his life, becomes way more macabre than he intended.
The performances in this movie are absolutely solid. The daddy-daughter relationship between Robert and Sammey is perfect, and individually they’re both believable, rounded characters. Trinity does particularly well considering this is one of her first roles. Dee Wallace shines as the paranoid, secret harboring Margaret. Even the smaller characters, gardener and love interest to Sammey, James (Bret Green – Jane the Virgin, How To Get Away With Murder) and ‘bitch mom’ Lynn (Elise Muller – The Phoenix Incident, Canoga Park) are great and not throw-away characters at all.
The film’s score contributes to the creepiness well, and the camera work and direction is professional, even if a little typical and cliche of horror movies. Considering this is Cuyle Carvin’s (American Made, The Walking Dead) feature length directorial debut, he’s not done a bad job.
Dolls is an adequate entry in the crowded possessed dolls category, with some brilliant acting, gory deaths, and one helluva creepy nursery rhyme that you don’t want stuck in your head.
Dolls is released on DVD/VOD July 7th.
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Not generally a fan of “horror” movies, I enjoyed this film. If that is Trinity Simpson’s first film, that girl has a future!!!!