Director: Maria Lease
Year: 1991
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Killer Doll
Plot:
Arriving in Mexico to begin producing dolls, a factory owner and his family come to believe that a doll that their daughter has developed a growing fascination with is behind a rash of strange murders plaguing the factory and tries to stop its deadly curse from coming to fruition.
Review:
This was quite a fun and highly enjoyable entry. One of its better efforts is the fact that it really does a fine job of bringing doubt to the adults about the doll's living abilities, which is always a plus here. The initial parts here seem innocent enough, with the family arriving in the country and beginning their stay, which brings about the discovery of the doll in the ruins of the factory and how attached the daughter becomes, eventually overwhelmed by the doll’s burgeoning influence over her and her behavior. Starting off nicely with the intention of being along together at all times and ignoring parental concerns before getting a little darker with the outbursts and selfish disregard for others, but the doll both work well to bridge the second half, which is a lot more action-packed with some great scenes.
That gives the film a solid baseline throughout for some great scenes involving the killer doll running loose on others. The discovery of the nanny is Gothic-influenced splendor with the searching in the dark house and basement, the raging thunderstorm blowing the doors open and the final reveal which is all quite shocking, especially with the previous stalking scene taking place in the abandoned factory, and providing the best example of this while others are just as fun. The scenes inside the factory are generally creepy, with the endless rows of body parts and boxes providing the best setting here for the big finale, and the race to get out of the house before it takes over is just as much fun. This also manages to get some fun out of the rather impressive special effects for the doll, which uses a pretty creepy look with a fine amount of facial suggestions and moving body parts to look suitably creepy on-screen. That means this has a lot of good points in here.
There's not a whole lot really wrong with this one. In fact, it’s not a big deal as there's only one big issue which is the sheer by-the-numbers plot this provides, falling into the typical clichés found in most similar genre pictures utilizing this familiar storyline, which focuses on the doll integrating itself into the family. This one tends to hit those notes so regularly that where the lone difference occurs is the curse providing some minor change, but beyond that, there's not a whole lot of change that comes from here. While the beginning of this does take a pretty long time to get going as it tends to focus a lot more on the family settling in and how they react to the doll, that this one ends up being so familiar and clichéd is really all that holds this one down.
Overview: ***.5/5
Far better than expected killer doll slasher, there’s a lot to like here that makes this one stand up against a few minor drawbacks present which aren’t even that detrimental. Those who enjoy this kind of genre fare or are unbothered by the flaws here will want to give it a shot while most others out there should heed caution.
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