For this year’s 31 Nights of Horror Challenge, the Day 9 prompt was Creepy Doll. There are a few movies that fit that genre, like Chucky, of course, Poltergeist, Meg and others but we went with an old school one called Dolls (1987).
Storyline
Five adults and a child (two parties traveling separately) are stranded in a storm and spend the night in the mansion of an elderly couple who are dollmakers. However, the travelers’ young daughter realizes the dolls the couple makes were once wicked humans whom the couple has miniaturized and turned into dolls.
Our Thoughts on Dolls
This one was up there on the cheesy factor and not very good. The dolls worked well for 1980s horror but so dated today with all of the advances in movie making. They were still using stop animation in the one.
There were a lot of themes that would not fly today like the relationships between father and daughter, spanking, and the creepy vibes between Ralph and the little girl and even the latter relationship with the old folks.
4 out of 10
Trivia
The dolls in the film were created with a combination of puppets, marionettes, stop-motion animation, and animatronics.
Actress Carrie Lorraine (Judy Bower) only had one previous film credit before this film, Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986), despite being “introduced” in the film’s opening credits. She retired from acting after this film, having no interest in pursuing it as a career, and instead pursued a career as a criminal defense lawyer.
