Director: Jamie Weston
Year: 2018
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Killer Doll
Plot:
Looking for some extra money, robbers arrive at a remote manor house in the countryside looking to use the supposedly abandoned property for themselves, but when they realize that a haunted doll is loose on the property, they’re forced to defend themselves against the deadly entity.
Review:
Overall, this was a decent enough if troublesome genre effort. Among the better factors to be had here comes from the strong central setup that gives everything a solid enough reason for the action here to take place. The whole point of the girl getting hired to watch over the house for the night while they’re away and using that as an inn for the friends to come over and rob the place afterward as a way for extra money allows this to get the initial scenes out of the way early on, where she’s alone in the house trying to go about her duties without getting caught. When her friends arrive to carry out the rest of the plan, this one manages to put its early setup to good use by offering the kind of fun haunting scenes in there to make it obvious something isn’t right, but with no one else aware of that since they were outside, it offers up some genuine attempts at suspense that land more often than not.
That comes about incredibly well with the use of the haunted house scenes and some haunted doll action. The solid opening about the previous owners coming across the haunted doll and learning that it’s coming to attack them in some solid enough sequences offers a great start to the matter, while the later setpieces in the house are more genuinely chilling and creepy moments. These scenes of her wandering around the house by herself, trying to prepare everything for her friends to come later that night, offer the great feeling that she’s being watched with the way the camera focuses on her walking around, getting dressed, or cleaning up, while later moments using the baby monitor to taunt and torment her are immensely effective. The finale, a demented version of a teaparty, where the malicious doll comes to life and brings the robbers together to stay with her and her malicious handler, who knows everything, is a bit formulaic, but still has a lot of fun moments here that are enough to give this some worthwhile factors.
There are some big issues here that hold this down. The main issue here is the immensely slow and sluggish first half that spends far too much time on her alone in the house, rather than doing anything specific with the doll. The scenes of her wandering around, taking a bath, cleaning up the house, and staying in touch with her friends to know the time to strike the house offer up some intriguing moments here and there, but far too much of it is spent on these activities rather than doing much with the haunted doll. The idea of this one going for such a subdued and lower-tier style of genre fare in this manner, without the action taking place at all until the big finale, leaves this with that slower tempo holding everything down. As well, there’s also the usual series of low-budget limitations on display, from the overall presentation and production style to the general approach of how it all looks, keeping this one down overall despite the positive points.
Overview: **.5/5
A watchable enough take on the genre, there’s a healthy mix of likable factors and detrimental issues mixed within this one, which is what makes this such a mixed bag of a genre effort. Those with an appreciation for this type of genre fare or who aren’t bothered by the flaws will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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