Director: Justin Price
Year: 2017
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Killer Dolls
Plot:
Looking into a toymaker’s past, a couple who have inherited a toy store find that a strange elf doll begins following them around wherever they go, and when it becomes apparent that the doll is a harbinger of a curse coming to pass against them must stop it from continuing.
Review:
This one was a generally horrible effort. Among the sole positives featured here is the atmosphere of the situation which has some genuinely creepy elements at play. The central scenes of the curse coming to pass with the discovery of the doll and immediately being inundated with bizarre images and creepy whispers signaling the start of their influence over him beginning to take shape. Once their rampage starts and the dolls start to take down him and his friends at the house party where they’re staying, the tension and suspense here are somewhat decent enough with the creepy laughing, unnerving ability to appear out of nowhere, and vicious attitude lead to some decent enough sequences. However, these are really all the film has going for it.
There are quite a few flaws with this one. The biggest issue is that the film is so bland and boring that this one feels much longer than it really is through utterly terrible padding. The entire phone call in the store to the smoking friend that goes nowhere, meeting the babbling and incoherent driver in the accident on the way home, or the silent treatment because she’s mad at him on the drive home just speaks to the film’s tendency to pad out the running time. Later scenes involving the research into the family legacy trying to discover who the dollmaker really is or what they have in connection with the curse of the killer dolls stalking them which has so little interest the pacing in general is immensely flat and lifeless.
As well, the storyline of this one is so confusing and scattershot that it feels like various discordant elements are added together. From the series of inner workings about the curse that brings the dolls into their lives and targets them specifically, the interactions with the locals who help to inform him about the backstory of the toymaker that sets everything in motion, the family being targeted, and the revelations that come about in the finale, there are some rather complicated ideas at play here. For a film that really should just be about these killer dolls appearing as a result of them taking over the house and freeing them, this one goes on with far more elements than necessary which need spelling out and all help to add more time to the sluggish pace.
The other flaw here is the general cheap and low-budget look that runs throughout the entire film. While it should be obvious from the fact that the gore is nearly non-existent and that the highlight sequence of the string of lights coming to life and strangling the carolers is shown off-screen, that there’s nothing beyond the obvious series of flimsy effects here with the underwhelming gore as well as the plastic-looking dolls that are being asked to take seriously as the design for the dolls isn’t bad but the fact that trying to make them out as anything but manipulated plastic toys instead of living creatures is virtually impossible with how they’re portrayed as here. These all end up being the main issues against the film.
Overview: */5
A watchable if rather flawed genre effort, there’s not much to enjoy here with a series of big issues that hold this one down with these issues holding the positive points down. Give it a shot if you’re a hardcore fan of this kind of indie effort or appreciate holiday horror fare like this one, while most others out there should heed caution here.
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