Review by Sue Finn
Directed by: Stephen Wolfe
Starring: Justin Herman, Nicole Elliott, Andy Palmer, Boo Gay, Eric C. Schneider
Opening on Halloween 1976 where two cops and a sub-par Huggy Bear do battle with dolls while wisecracking, the quality of the dialogue was already giving me a headache. The film itself is made to look ‘old timey’ with cgi scratches and glitches.
Flash forward to present day and we attend a Halloween party where our protagonists display the worst kind of behaviour, beginning with insulting another partygoer's appearance for a wretched 10 minutes - lovely.
They decide to conjure ghosts at the old abandoned doll factory but not before they rescue sleazy friend Eric from the "man-thing who might rape him" that they were insulting earlier; just when you thought these people couldn’t be more repellent. The group consists of three men and three women, all seemingly incapable of acting like actual human beings.
When will filmmakers learn that populating their horror film with unlikable characters only works against the movie? I actually can’t wait for these people to die rather than hope they survive, which is the direct opposite reason to watch a horror film.
Of course, minutes after they do some spell casting at the factory the violent little dolls appear to slaughter the group of ‘friends’.
Upon glimpsing one of the fat cracked-faced dolls a character says "ok, I’m officially creeped out now;" pity the audience won’t say the same.
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The deaths start immediately with the supposed teens (they all look well into their twenties) just watching a friend who is screaming in agony as a doll attacks him, with the same gormless expressions they’ve made throughout the entire movie.
Kay and Mark (Nicole Elliott and Justin Herman respectively – better than this movie deserves) both escape with their lives, abandoning the others to gruesome deaths.
When they go to the police they encounter the same Sheriff Barclay we had seen earlier in 1976 ‘aged’ with a greyish beard - not in the slightest bit convincing – played with relish by Chris Fender.
In search of new souls, the dolls take it on the road where we meet another group of misogynistic, disgusting young men ripe for the killing.
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Meanwhile, Kay enlists the help of her nerd brother Melvin (a good effort by Andy Palmer), who looks into the doll factory’s classified history on his computer before they meet up with Darius Grumley (Boo Gay, scenery chewer and ‘Huggy Bear’ from the 1976 intro), who joins with them to return to the factory and do battle with the dolls and their demon master Yegor (a fun Patrick Sane).
Unfortunately, there is little to enjoy in this feature by writer/director Stephen Wolfe. I found myself looking at the clock far more than I was laughing or jumping. The horror really isn’t there at all, though the gory deaths look good for the budget. The dolls are on strings and their mouths barely move – they should have been better realised than this.
The acting is not bad, with some good performances, but they are let down by a lousy script that relies on cheap nasty laughs rather than saying anything witty or wry. This is lowest common denominator stuff, though it says a lot about the quality of Herman’s performance that he does manage to rise above it and become somewhat likable in the end.
Without the loathsome attitude towards women, smarter humour and perhaps with better villains, this could have been a fun ride, but as it stands it's mean-spirited and ugly.
Puerile dick jokes, bestiality jokes and deep misogyny are not amusing to me, not to mention spending time with people you wouldn’t want to meet in real life. It makes for a very long hour and a half.
Not funny, not scary, not good.
One to forget.
Doll Factory is on DVD/VOD now.
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