Director: Tod Browning (uncredited)
Year: 1936
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: The Witch of Timbuctoo
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Escaped from prison, an ex-con learns from his partner that he can seek revenge on those who wronged him with a special voodoo spell to turn them into miniature dolls, and armed with the knowledge to do so, sets out to accomplish his goal.
Review:
This one has a few really good parts to it. The most telling is the great special effects work, as this has a large number of scenes where the dolls are interacting with their surroundings, and the scenes where the dolls are running around in shots as the life-size humans are interacting with them look great overall. The early scenes where they're running around on the countertops are fun, but the real joy comes when they start playing around at the end where they turn into killers and stalk the unsuspecting victims. These are all wonderfully fun scenes, as they come into very active parts of the film and really manage to work so great because of the ingenious way of accomplishing this task. The ability to get them on the same screen with the life-size characters as well as their centric scenes are convincingly done and really manage to impress in every well as there's no hitch in anything of these scenes.
This one also features some great action scenes here with the dolls carrying out the revenge here where the one doll does through the house and steals the jewelry from the wife before engaging in the actual revenge of the miniature doll scurrying along the bedding to carry out in the attack on the banker which is quite a fine scene here. The attack on the last banker is quite fun as well with the stalking in the grand, elaborate mansion decorated in Christmas regalia as the protective guards wander around until the fateful moment where it finally pulls the whole revelation together in a fine sequence. It even has a really great ending that comes with a fine resolution to matters and a really fun fight that really manages to provide some excitement and really make the movie entertaining.
This one only has one mild flaw, and that is the large section of time taken up to get through the middle segment. This is mostly through the romance angle of the daughter being interrupted by her hatred for him which doesn't need to be there. They could've done the daughter subplot without having the romance thrown in by merely keeping the two separate, focusing solely on each other, and not really offering much of a chance to spill over as the constant inferences in every scene means it's tiring and clichéd. As well, this manages to further another minor flaw as it really makes a short movie feel really long with an overabundance of such scenes when it really doesn't need to be. This lone gripe is the movie's flaw.
Overview: ****/5
An impressive killer-doll effort that sets the genre in motion, this has quite a lot to like that manages to overcome the few flaws present that hold it down. Those who appreciate this kind of genre fare or are curious about its origins will have a lot to like here while those that don't appreciate this kind of style should heed caution with it.
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