tdrish While Dolly Dearest is a far cry from a good movie, it's a far cry from a bad movie, likewise. One thing I need to warn you first and foremost: this film is light on the gore, and light on scares. Expecting either of the two? You will probably be disappointed. Surprisingly, the movie was actually quite entertaining, despite it's downfalls. And it has a few to mention. Mediocore acting. Cheesy 80's look, despite this being an early 90's film. The story? Engrossing, but very difficult to put into words at its flaws. Cliched. Very cliched. I mean, an ancient spirit is unleashed after an archeologist opens a door. No crate, no box to open, just a door protected us from this evil spawn of Satan....who, instead of possessing little girls like in The Exorcist, instead possess the bodies of tiny female dolls. Scary? Hardly. The film is actually quite humorous, where I laughed my butt off when one of the male characters is killed off, he pulls off his shirt, and awkwardly rubs his nipples as he dies. Weird. Very weird. Aside from the bad stuff, the good stuff makes up for the bad: Decent enough script ( ignore the logic, it IS, afterall, a horror movie), doesn't overstay its welcome, and a comical climax to end it all. Bottom ine: Dolly Dearest is no Childs Play, but it will remain somewhere in the middle of the spectrum for me. 5 out of 10 stars. Rest in peace, Mr. Bottoms. You were an underrated actor.

Leofwine_draca As you may have already guessed, CHILD'S PLAY is the influence for this lamentable C-grade horror movie which doesn't even have the decency of including any of the genre staples (eg. sex or violence) which would have made it more of an exploitation piece. Instead, we're treated to long sequences where little occurs (eg. the first half an hour), terribly wooden acting and a clichéd script which also draws in influences (or to put it plainly, rips off) from POLTERGEIST and THE EVIL DEAD. The best thing about this boring, cheaply-made effort is that I didn't have to pay to see it! At least it keeps a straight face throughout, which means that it's better than abysmal fare like the LEPRECHAUN series or that abomination, RUMPLESTILTSKIN. Sadly, though, the deadly serious tone only provides a couple of unintentional chuckles throughout the film.Things open with some of those poor computer effects standing in for an ancient Mexican evil force that immediately possesses a factory of dolls. The box makes this sound impressive, until you realise that there are only about four dolls in the "factory" (more like a run-down shed). After this we are introduced to an all-American family. These are a mixed bunch. Firstly we have the terrible actress Denise Crosby. For Denise, this was another step down in her career, which had previously gone from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION(a popular, mainstream cult television series) to PET SEMATARY(a just about passable Stephen King adaptation). After this, things could only get worse, and the last I know of her, she was shedding her clothes for some erotic cable series.Her husband is an irritating, mindless idiot who must be blind not to notice the "odd" things going on in his household (daughter speaking in strange tongues, child's strange attachment to doll, son's obsession with archaeological site). He is played by Sam Bottoms, a wooden nobody. The daughter is an irritating, whining little girl, but the son is a likable geek. Another desperate actor appearing in the cast is Rip Torn, who plays a John Rhys-Davies type role of an intrepid archaeologist - at least HIS career could only go up from here.There is only one gore scene of note in the film, a painful moment where a man gets his hand caught in a sewing machine. There are three deaths in total. One occurs at the beginning, with a man getting crushed under a stone door. The second man has a heart attack (?), and then a woman gets electrocuted. Big deal. The film doesn't even offer up much in the way of doll rampage, with the limited special effects of an animated doll only appearing briefly throughout the film - what a rip off.Seriously, the best thing I can say about this movie is that it's short, and also at least the dolls don't keep coming back to life - once they're dead, they stay dead, which doesn't prolong the agony. A few of the scenes in the Mexican tomb are all right as well, particularly the discover of a desiccated, goat-headed corpse. And check out some of that hilarious dialogue, like "My daughter is possessed by a 900 year old goat-head, damn it!". All in all, though, this is a colourless affair, and one to be avoided like so many others, unless you're REALLY stuck for something to see.

Coventry "Dolly Dearest" is a very boring, extremely redundant and almost intolerably gore-free imitation of Tom Holland's unexpectedly successful shocker "Child's Play"; starring Brad Dourif as the voice of a toy doll possessed with the spirit of a psychopathic killer. This knock-off, released approximately at the same time as the second sequel to "Child's Play", replaces the one male doll with multiple female ones and the murderer's vengeful spirit with a 900-year-old Satanic curse, but pretty much all the other elements in the script are identical. The dolls aim to possess the body of an innocent young girl, the parents are initially blind for the horrific events destroying their family happiness and the killer dolls even shout out supposedly witty but dumb one-liners near the end of the film. The story takes place somewhere in Mexico, where the ambitious American businessman Elliot Reid bought a ramshackle doll factory with the intention of distributing beautiful and handmade dolls all over the planet. But the factory is located next to old mines where an archaeologist accidentally set free the ghost of the Sanzian Devil Child. The ghost seeks refuge in several dollies, one of them belonging to Elliot's cherubic 7-year-old daughter Jessica. The dolls actually look menacing, especially in their "normal" state, but the film is very slow-paced and uninteresting. The first doll-attack is reasonably exciting, but it comes too far into the film and around a time when most die-hard horror fanatics have already given up all hopes to seeing a good film. The character drawings are bland and unsympathetic and the acting performances (with the exception of Rip Torn as a grumpy university's archaeologist) are horridly miserable. Writer/director Maria Lease – previously an exploitation actress – thought up a couple of potentially great aspects, like for example the old factory setting and the mines, but stupidly only uses a small percentage of them. Doll parts, most notably broken and/or ancient, form some of the creepiest horror scenery imaginable, but the film only offers a bit of eerie doll-graveyard footage. Simply everything about "Dolly Dearest" is mediocre and unmemorable, including Mark Snow's dull music and the evil grimaces on dolly's rubber face. Usually rip-offs and imitations are far more exploitative (meaning gorier, sleazier and more demented) than the originals they're based on, but "Dolly Dearest" is a rare exception to this unwritten rule… It's "Child's Play" for actual child audiences.

Paul Andrews Dolly Dearest starts at an archaeological dig in Mexico where professor Bob Larabe (Brass Adams) opens an ancient tomb he believes to be Mayan, however in an accident Larabe is killed & evil spirits escape the tomb... Elliot (Sam Bottoms) & Marilyn Read (Denise Crosby) plus their two young children Jessica (Candace Hutson) & Jimmy (Chris Demetral) are about to begin a new life in Mexico having moved from Los Angeles, they have sunk all their money into a doll factory which they plan to run themselves. The factory isn't in the best of conditions but the Read's are prepared for the hard work ahead, while looking around Jessica notices a rack of large dolls & ask's her Mother if she can have one which she can. Unfortunately this is no ordinary doll, it starts to possess Jessica & make her say & do bad things while the doll itself has been possessed by an evil Sanzian spirit released from the tomb who likes to kill, terrorise & generally cause trouble...Written & directed by Maria Lease I thought Dolly dearest was an average horror film, it passed the time but wasn't especially good. The script has Child's Play (1988) written all over doesn't it? It also has a little bit of The Omen (1976) thrown in for good measure as well with it's child possession angle & evil spirits. Now, both Child's Play & The Omen are fine films so what's wrong with blending them together I hear you say. Well for a start it adds nothing of it's own & doesn't do a thing with the concept, this could have been a great little horror film if the filmmakers had delivered plenty of deaths, a quick pace to the story, decent character's, some decent exploitation & something that just wasn't so instantly forgettable. It's all rather predictable, it's far too slow (only one kill within the first hour?), the potential of having a factory of possessed dolls seemed to be wasted, it's set entirely within the confines of one house, a factory & an archaeological dig which gives it a very limited feeling. Having said that it's quite fun on occasion, it doesn't really try to be anything else other than a killer doll horror film & as long as you can cope with a slow pace it provides a reasonable amount of entertainment. At least it kept me watching until the end & I didn't want to stop it at any point. Nowhere near as good as Child's Play, Dolls (1987) or Puppet Master (1989).Director Lease proves that women can make horror films just as badly as any male although to be fair to her Dolly Dearest is competent & has a nice horror film atmosphere to it, it's not really scary though & there's an unforgivable lack of blood & gore, someone is stabbed with some scissors & someone gets their hand caught in a sewing machine but that's about it. The dolls themselves are really ugly & aren't scary or creepy & if I had children I wouldn't give them a doll as unintentionally freaky looking as this.Technically Dolly Dearest is alright, it could have been worse I suppose, the doll effects are OK although the red evil spirit effect's at the start look extremely dated. Set in Mexico it was actually filmed in Santa Clarita, California. The acting was average with the two children becoming increasingly more annoying as time passed, Rip Torn makes an appearance as an archaeologist.Dolly Dearest isn't the best killer toy film ever but it's not the worst either, I suppose it's smack bang right in the middle somewhere. I thought it was average, worth a watch if you've got nothing better to do & you can grab a copy cheap or catch it on TV for free.