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”

From Beyond

Title:  From Beyond

Director:  Stuart Gordon
Released:  1986
Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ken Foree, Ted Sorel, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon

Plot: Dr. Edward Pretorius (Sorel) has created “The Resonator”, a machine which allows people to see beyond normal perceptible reality. However when the initial test run goes wrong leaving Pretorius decapitated and his assistant Dr. Crawford Tillinghast (Combs) committed to a psych ward. Now released into the custody of Dr. Katherine McMichaels (Crampton) she sets out to find out more about the experiment they were running.

 

Review:  Why is it that Stuart Gordon never seems to receive the same amount of respect as his “Masters of Horror” counterparts? It’s something that has constantly confused me especially when he was responsible for giving the world “Re-Animator”. A film which in turn would become the first of his “H.P. Lovecraft” adaptations for whom he has remained a source of constant obsession for the director, with this film once again being based on a Lovecraft short story, originally published in “The Fantasy Fan” in 1934.

Shot back to back with “Dolls” in Italy and with an Italian crew as part of a cost cutting measure which Gordon has stated helped him keep the film under budget as what would have cost fifteen million dollars ended up costing around two and a half million instead. Still its a simple enough “Horrors of Science” story with “The Resonator” enables those in its field to enter into an alternative dimension and of course this being based on a Lovecraft tale means that monsters are very much the order of the day. What makes this film standout though is the approach that Gordon chooses to take with the material which is strange to say the least.
 

Opening with Crawford switching on the machine for the first time and soon discovering the first of the creatures on the other side taking the form of a flying moray eel, which almost immediately attacks him, which honestly would be enough for most folks to call it a day. However Pretorius has other ideas as he insists on a second test which soon goes horribly wrong, while more humorously incurring the wrath of their neighbour who ventures over in her rollers to shout at them some more and get her dog back which for some reason or another feels the need to run over there. What only adds to this opening is when she runs in terror from their house seemingly in slow motion, that is until you see Crawford barrelling down the stairs behind her and you realise that she’s just in fact that slow. As great as this opening is it does have the downside of essentially giving the mystery away and means that we pretty much know what the group is going to encounter when they return to the house.

Gordon really works the potential of the short story (a whopping seven pages) with some interesting additions of his own, let alone bringing the story into the present day. That being said it’s the plotting of this film which were the film falls apart as how he chooses to play the story is frequently quite baffling with the opening being the major one for myself seeing how it effectively kills any mystery the film has within its opening ten minutes, so that when Crawford returns to the house / lab with Katherine we already know to an extent what they are in for. For some reason we also get an S&M element added to the story with Pretorius having his own dungeon and which seems to only have been included so that Gordon had an excuse for Katherine to dress up randomly in some sexy leather gear, when suddenly appears to be possessed. I suppose Gordon does try and balance things out by giving us Ken Foree running around in the smallest pair of pants ever.

As I’ve mentioned already, the other side which “The Resonator” opens the door to comes with a host of intresting monsters and which thanks to the work of four different special effects teams and effects created by John Carl Buechler who here comes close to besting those designed by Rob Bottin for “The Thing” which still remains the benchmark for practical effects. That being said there the effects on show here are still extremely impressive as Buechler combines practical effects with elements of stop motion all of which still look great especially with the more gooey effects.  The centrepiece here though is Pretorius who returns in a heavily mutated form and one which continues to change as the film progresses as he unleashes a variety of interesting mutated appendages. As well as Pretorius who provides a suitably demented villain we also get a giant worm thing in the basement which keeps things fun when you have Crawford and Bubba (Foree) battling it with Bubba in just those lovely underpants no less.
 

While this film might not be in the same league as “Re-Animator” its still fun enough to balance out the negatives such as the aforementioned horrible plotting which at times doesn’t seem to know which way to take the film, especially when logic and plausibility are seemingly afterthoughts here. That being said if you’re in the mood for slimy monsters and strange mutations then this one delivers in spades while making you wonder why Gordon remains so overlooked when it comes essential horror directors.