Stuart Gordon's Dolls (1987)

Stuart Gordon's Dolls (1987)

Stuart Gordon's Dolls (1987)

After Re-Animator, cult director Stuart Gordon experienced a brief surge in popularity and was able to make From Beyond and Dolls virtually back to back. Though it received a very limited theatrical release in 1987, Dolls has since gained an impressive reputation among horror fans and remains one of Gordon's very best films. At once whimsical and creepy, the film creates in the viewer a sense of child-like wonder and makes one feel as though they're seeing the bizarre events of the film through the eyes of 9-year-old star Carrie Lorraine. The movie was actually shot before From Beyond in 1986 and used the very same sets, but there was so much post-production work needed to be completed due to all the doll effects that it didn't meet audiences until 1987.

The plot of Dolls revolves around precocious preteen Judy Bower (Lorraine), who ends up stranded along with her expasperated father David (Ian Patrick Williams) and aloof stepmother Rosemary (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, the director's wife who was also great in Re-Animator and From Beyond) one rain-filled night in the woods when the family car becomes stuck in the mud. The drenched family comes across a sprawling but decrepit house in the middle of the woods and decide to give it a shot and see if the house occupants would be hospitable enough to put them up for the night. The house does indeed turn out to be inhabited by kindly toymaker Gabrielle Hartwick (Guy Rolfe) and his patient wife Hillary (Hilary Mason), and the charitalbe older couple just happen to have some spare rooms. Trouble is, the house is littered with wicked dolls, all of which were once human beings and are being punished by Rolfe for possessing immoralities and twisted souls, trapped within the porcelain bodies of intricately designed toys.

The entire cast gives standout performaces. Screen veteran Guy Rolfe (Ivanhoe, King of Kings, and Mr. Sardonicus) and is just terrific as Gabrielle, as is Hilary Mason (best remembered as the blind psychic in Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now) as Mrs. Hartwicke. There's great makeup effects, and I can see why it took so long to release Dolls. There's a really creepy scene where the dolls grab and attack punk rocker Isabel (Bunty Bailey) and repeatedly ram her head into the wall, and her best friend Enid (Cassie Stuart) gets it when she's fatally shot by an army of gun-toting nutcrackers. Bitchy Rosemary is terrorized by the little demons when they accost her in the bedroom and start sawing on her arms with a miniture handsaw, and she ends up jumping out of the second-story window just to escape the infernal toys. Stephen Lee also appears to great effect in this film as Ralph and is determined to stop the evil monsters. At a scant 74 minutes, the film is extremely brisk and great fun! The musical score is haunting and will stick with you, and the set design is often jaw-dropping. Nowadays Dolls would probably be given a PG-13 rating as opposed to its original R-rating, but that doesn't mean it's only for kids. There's no sex or nudity, but there is some unsettling violence and a decent amount of gore.

Though it spawned no direct sequels, Dolls did have an influence on several killer doll films that followed, such as Child's Play, Puppet Master, Demonic Toys, Dollman, Dolly Dearest and Pinocchio's Revenge. I enthusiastically rate Dolls an 8 of 10 and recommend it to all horror buffs.

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