31 Days of Horror 2024 Day 26 Doll Face

 

TITLE-Doll Face

SOURCE-Echo Bridge Blu Ray/DVD Combo Pack

Over the close to 20 years I have lived in rural SW Mississippi I have gotten to know all the local cult and horror movie fans. Not that many of us locally so we all kind of know each other. There is one who I have had on the Asshat Podcast Youtube channel a few times. And a few years ago he did a review of this Doll Face movie. And thankfully I forgot his review.

Needed something to watch tonight and saw this blu ray/dvd sitting on the shelf. Upside down ,which is my shorthand for something I haven't watched. Knowing it was borrowed I put it on expecting who knows what.

Maralade is a young lady who just inherited a nice apartment from her Aunt who has passed. Only rules are she must keep the dolls the aunt collected from all over the world. And NEVER LOOK THE DOLLS IN THE EYES!

And for the next hour and 17 minutes you get just oddness. The lead lady never moves her mouth and at first I thought we were just hearing her thoughts. But the others in the film appear to hear them to. So I guess she was talking but her mouth didnt move?

Lots of scenes of her going to bed each night with a different doll. Or the odd Doll repairman that is also homeless and covered with tattoos. And the constant references to hangings and suicide by hanging.

Then about 15 minutes till the end the twist hits. A glorious Twilight Zone like twist. And if the film ended about 5 minutes earlier it would be a bit long but decent horror/cult film. Nope it goes on and stuff starts happening that makes even less sense than most of what happened before. 

So what is this twist? I imagine knowing the twist would really change the first viewing of Doll Face,which of not that long ago was streaming free on TUBi and FANDANGO AT HOME AKA VUDU.

SPOILERS 

The twist is Maralade is a doll. A human sized doll. That is why her mouth never moved!!!

END OF SPOILERS

Not worth buying,buddy that got it paid a buck at a pawn shop. But worth seeing at least once.

Doll Face gets a C-

31 days of horror year 3 day 31 first film

Ok gonna try to get 12 films watched today. So there should be a new review every 2 hours or so. No idea if I will manage to do it. But I have 4 two liters of Mountain Dew to help make sure I don't fall asleep.

Dolly Dearest
1992
Epix3 airing

This aired this month on the fucking great channel EPIX3. This channel seems to always  be showing stuff that isn' t out on DVD. I really have no idea how many people get it but fuck it rules. Dolly Dearest ,Well I remember seeing the box cover in various video stores for years. But never rented it. But saw that it was airing,so set the DVR and then transferred it to a DVD-r.

This is about a family of four moving down to Mexico. The dad is taking over a old very well respected doll factory. And right off the bat the dad and the two kids go to visit it. Well while there the daughter finds an old doll that she falls in love with. So the dad lets her take it home. The son wanders off and discovers that there is a archeology dig happening right behind the factory. This gets his attention cause he wants to be an archaeologist when he gets older.

Well over the next few days strange things start happening. The daughter starts freaking out anytime the maid is praying. And then one night when the parents go out the doll kills the maid. Well the son the next day sneaks into the dig site and discovers it is an ancient Sanzia tomb. The Sanzia's are Mexican Satanists. Well it is easy to figure out that some kind of evil spirits have possessed the doll/dolls. And fairly quickly the dolls left at the factory start attacking various people. And what really surprised me is how well done the doll effects are done. I am assuming they used midgets in suits for some scenes. But the doll's faces are very expressive and this helps add to the atmosphere of the film.

Going in I was expecting a low budget Chucky ripoff. And what I got was  a nice medium budget spin on the Chucky films. The acting and FX work are pretty decent and there is a few decent jump scares. Dolly Dearest gets a C+.