Dolls

Title: Dolls

Director:  Stuart Gordon
Released: 1987

Starring: Ian Patrick Williams, Carolyn Purdy, Carrie Lorraine, Guy Rolfe, Hilary Mason, Bunty Bailey, Cassie Stuart, Stephen Lee

Plot: Traveling with her father (Williams) and arrogant stepmother Rosemary (Gordon), Judy (Lorraine) finds herself stranded by a thunderstorm and forced to take shelter in a mansion owned by the elderly toymakers Gabriel (Rolfe) and Hilary (Mason) Hartwicke. Judy’s family are also soon they are also joined by the mild-mannered Ralph (Lee) and the two punk hitchhikers (Bunty Bailey and Cassie Stuart) he picked up only for these guest to soon find themselves being targeted by the very alive doll collection.

Review: This is a film which I’ve been wanting to see since watching the documentary on Stuart Gordon’s career which came as one of the bonus features for his “Masters of Horror” episode “Dreams In The Witch-House” and it was the footage of a giant sized teddy bear turning into a were bear and slashing Ian Patrick Williams across the face that I knew I wanted to see this film….as I’ve said many times before sometimes it takes just one shot. What I wasn’t expecting though was for Gordon to give what could easily have been the film’s climax in the first fifteen minutes for the film’s opening!

Okay so it’s a dream sequence, but its such a cool idea and like so many aspects of the film done so well that you don’t mind Gordon throwing in a scene which seemingly could have just been him going off on a whim or perhaps just having a cool idea he couldn’t work into the film any other way. Never the less it’s a great opening if one which perhaps makes for the film to find a way to follow it up, especially seeing how he teases out the killer dolls for a at least another thirty minutes after this scene instead choosing to focus on the mish-mash of characters he throws together in the mansion and who Gabriel and Hilary seemingly have no problem giving a place to stay for the night while at the same time being one of the creepiest on screen couples ever!

For the most part the group we have are all largely and perhaps intentionally unlikable from Judy’s father and Stepmother who she seems to be more of an inconvenience to, especially when at one point they are making plans to dump Judy on her mother so they can run away and enjoy their youth. A strange statement for either of them to be saying when they are so clearly middle aged but this is the plan they are going with anyway. Challenging them for the title of most odious couple though are our British punk hitchhikers Isabel and Enid who are some unknown reason are hanging around in the countryside and speak with nerve shredding cockney accents  because seemingly Gordon assumes that how all British people speak.

On the other side of things the supposedly good people are limited to Judy who seems to only have one setting seeing how she responds to pretty much every situation the same way. Ralph mean while is much more likable and provides many of the films comedic moments thanks to Stephen Lee being allowed to improvise some of his parts. Needless to say the good people are also the ones who like dolls, with Ralph lamenting his father forcing him to give up his toys when he was younger.  

One of the strengths of the film is really in the set design with the Hartwicke’s mansion being a suitably gothic and creepy setting, while also one which doesn’t give away the game too early on, with the expected shelves of dolls being hidden away behind closed doors rather than having them watching on from every wall like we have seen in similar films such as “The Doll Master”. Even when we get the first kill Gordon a director hardly known for subtly here shows great restraint as he keeps the attackers off screen, teasing us instead with the sounds of their shrill little voices as they set about bashing Isabel’s head into a wall.

Thankfully when we do get to see the killer dolls it’s not the disappointment that I had been expecting with stage hands essentially bouncing the dolls about to make them appear as it they are moving as now seen with the later entries in the “Puppet Master” series. Instead we get wonderfully stop motion animated Dolls who are generally creepy to watch attack people and it’s during the attack scenes that we get so many of the films highlights with the dolls setting upon their victims with tiny knifes and even the occasional hacksaw as we see with Rosemary’s death who also for some explained reason also randomly throws herself out of a window in a scene in which it appears she is jumping over a line of dolls only to then suddenly throw herself through the window.

While not super heavy on gore what we get in terms of gore and deaths is more makes this a satisfying watch with Gordon attempting to add more gore scenes in post production he soon realised that they didn’t suit the tone of the film and cut them all out which I’d say was the right mood tonely for the film and certainly it doesn’t feel like anything has been lost by the removal of these. More so when we still have a lot of fun treats including a death by doll firing squad and one character being turned into a Mr. Punch doll which ensures that this film is more than memorable enough without bathing everything in crimson.

Of course the mystery of the living dolls is pretty straight forward and only further helped by everything in this world being so clear cut especially when it comes to whose good and whose bad with Gabriel and Hillary turning those deemed as bad into living dolls under their control. Laughably neither Ralph nor Judy discover this secret as they are instead convinced it was all a dream and encouraged to go on with their lives via a letter supposedly left for them by the now missing members of their party.

This film is another fun entry on Gordon’s film making C.V. and while it’s not near the likes of “Re-Animator” it’s still a noteworthy entry and one of the few films he has made that I would truly have loved to see a sequel to, which seems unlikely to happen especially when Gordon axed his previous attempt to give this film a sequel during pre-production. Still for fans of killer doll movies this is unquestionably one of the better entries in the genre.

*Written as part of “The Shortening” blogathon at “The Deadly Dollhouse of Horror Nonsense”

Curse of Chucky

Title: Curse of Chucky

Director: Don Mancini
Released: 2013
Starring: Fiona Dourif, Brad Dourif, Danielle Bisutti, A. Martinez, Brennan Elliot, Maitland McConnell, Summer H. Howell, Chantal Quesnelle, Jennifer Tilly, Alex Vincent

Plot: Set four years after the events of “Seed of Chucky”, where wheelchair bound Nica (Fiona Dourif) mysteriously receives Chucky (Brad Dourif) in the mail looking surprisingly the same as his original good guy doll form (you know prior to the amount of damage he picked up over the course of the previous films). Unaware of whom sent him or even what he is, disregards the doll who after Nica’s mother mysteriously dies from apparent suicide ends up in the hands of her niece Alice as the Nica’s sister Barb with husband and nanny in tow arrive to handle their mothers funeral. However mysterious deaths soon to befell the group as Nica soon begins to suspect that the may be more to the doll than first suspected.

Review: Entering into this sixth film in the “Child’s Play” franchise there is certainly the nagging question of what the saga really had left of offer? A question certainly relevant at this point in the series now we have seen the living doll serial killer get married and even somehow spawn a son  (still not sure how that really worked). So with this in mind where could the series possibly head next with it only looking more likely that the series be sent to one of the possible franchise graveyards such as putting Chucky into space or perhaps Hawaii (a suggestion previously posed by Director John Waters when he cameoed in “Seed of Chucky”).

Certainly the future for the series did look bleak after the last film, which ultimately turned out to be a car crash of half-baked ideas and random casting. So you can only imagine my surprise to hear that at Frightfest this year there would be a new Chucky film premiering, something only added to by the news that this would not be a remake or even a reboot, something which seems to the current favourite approach to milking established franchises these days, so credit really has to be given to director and series creator Don Mancini for bucking the trend and not only finding a way to continue the on-going Chucky saga, but for also for somehow breathing new life into a franchise which by all appearances was dead and done. True it is a direct to video release, making it the first of the series to not see a theatre release (aswell as the first shot digital) which only makes it more of a shame considering how it is also possibly the strongest entry since my personal favourite “Child’s Play 2”.

Now for the established fans of the series there may be a sneaking feeling of Déjà vu, especially seeing how similar the plot might seem to that of the original film, what with Alice having secret conversations with Chucky and the grown-ups generally disregarding her comments as being part of a game she is playing. Meanwhile Chucky sneaks around in the background and randomly appears at various locations around the house. The fans should however fear not for while there might be similarities in plot framework this far from a remake or reboot trying to rework memorable sequences from the original into a new film. At the same time Mancini makes the ballsy move of using a slow burn reveal for Chucky, something unheard of especially when the character is so well known at this point in the series, the idea of pushing them into background appearances and brief glimpses hardly sounds like it would work, much less the fact that Chucky waits until around the 40 min mark to reveal himself to the group, yet surprisingly this really works as Mancini not only returns the series to its horror roots, despite having over the course of the last few films gradually moved the tone of the films more toward comedy. Here however he successfully reminds us how scary Chucky can be, especially when he more reknown for being a wise ass these days than an object of terror, again thanks to Mancini tweaking his character while the removal of Tily, removes the back and forth banter from were most of his comedy elements were gained from.

Brad Dourif is once again on great form (but does anyone want to name a film were he isn’t?) as he returns once more to voice Chucky and even though he is given less to say here with Douriff recording all his dialogue in a day, his presence however is still as memorable as always with all the usual mannerisms and memorable laugh all still kept faithfully intact. Elsewhere despite the more serious approach to his character Chucky still manages a few moments of murderous mischief including a round of guess who’s getting the bowl of rat poison chili, which will no doubt have you trying to figure out which character is going to get it in a scene played out gleefully with maximum misdirection and bluffs.

More interestingly though is that Dourif himself also makes an appearance in the film the first since the original film as he appears here as Chucky’s former human form, as we also get to learn more about Chucky’s past and how it links to Nica’s family as his random appearance into Nica’s life slowly starts to become less random, which in turn is only further credit to Mancini’s writing that he is not only able to craft here a clever mystery, yet also being able to tie it into the rest of the Chucky timeline, so much so that I frequently found any gripes I had regarding characters seemingly being written out or even regarding the seemingly new Chucky model being covered as the film, almost as if Mancini was reworking the film as I was watching it to handle those gripes.

While on the subject of Dorif though, it is certainly worth mentioning his daughter appearing opposite her father here as the feisty Nica whom being confined to a wheelchair not only provides the film with numerous interesting situations to overcome such as trying to get to the top floor of the house when the power to the elevator has been cut. Equally the idea of a paraplegic heroine is certainly something that’s never been seen before, with handicapped characters, usually being confined to supporting characters than the lead, especially in the case of horror and here it gives the film a shake-up which combined with the slowly mounting tension, with scenes such as Chucky using a blackout to stab here in the leg, before returning to his doll form, Nica of course not being able to feel him stab here there left looking confused as to how she got the wound is cleverfully used while Chucky continues to hide his presence as he shows the kind of restrain not seen since the first film, which of course only further keeps the audience guessing on how things are going to turn out.
Despite more directors these days favouring the use of CGI over practical effects it is refreshing to see this film staying true to its roots and one again using animatronics for the majority of the Chucky effects and only using CGI for the more complicated sequences which see him running around in the background or walking slowly down the stairs, it’s really another example of how CGI should be used in film making as an assist rather than the sole means of bringing fantastical creations to the screen, with the presence Chucky still maintains as a result of this process only being further evidence to the argument.

While the rumours continue regarding a studio reboot for the series, Mancini has here given the story once more potential new directions for the story to go, which certainly makes me hope the wait won’t be as long between this latest edition and the next, especially when Mancini has reignited interest in the series for even the most jaded of fans.