Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Dolls Blu-ray Movie Review

Children's Play.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 12, 2014

Years ago I was driving back from the Oregon coast in a barely legal older used station wagon I had purchased for the princely sum of $100, perhaps having been somewhat overcharged considering the lamentable condition of the car. Somewhere out in the wilds of the Oregon Coast Range, the car blew a tire and I pulled off the road onto the shoulder. I knew I had a spare, but I discovered on that dark and stormy night (sorry) that I had no tire jack. Across an abandoned field, I saw the dim lights of a farmhouse and decided to traipse over there to see if maybe they had a jack I could borrow. As I did so, a litany of horror movie memories came flooding back to me where some innocent bystander (or by-driver) encounters some kind of trouble, finds ostensible help at an isolated country home, and then discovers that his or her troubles have only just begun. Luckily the nice elderly couple I encountered were not nefarious serial killers, and indeed had not only a jack but even a cup of hot chocolate for me, and I was soon on my way no worse for wear. There’s no such luck in store for the hapless folks who wander into an isolated farmhouse in Dolls, a departure of sorts for horror auteur Stuart Gordon, a man who tends to traffic in more traditional horror fare based on H.P. Lovecraft (Re- Animator) and Edgar Allan Poe (The Pit and the Pendulum), but who in Dolls shows a (relatively) kinder, gentler side that would also inform his similarly anachronistic story for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

It’s obvious fairly early into Dolls that writer Ed Maha wants to evoke a fairy tale quality. There’s a precious little girl named Judy (Carrie Lorraine) more or less trapped in the back seat of a rental car her father David (Ian Patrick Williams) and mean (of course) stepmother Rosemary (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon) are driving around in the English countryside. The family dynamic between the ostensible parents is pretty rocky to begin with, and once Rosemary gets the car stuck in some mud after a freak storm, things don’t improve. The fairy tale ambience is heightened shortly thereafter with a fun if grotesque sequence that sees little Judy imagining her lost Teddy Bear coming to live in a gargantuan way, ultimately chewing through Rosemary’s arm, only to reveal itself as something akin to the Big Bad Wolf.

With torrential rains approaching, the three set off into the woods (hmmm. . .) and ultimately stumble across a somewhat dilipidated but still sheltering manor house that initially appears abandoned. Only after breaking in does the trio meet the home’s owners, elderly couple Gabriel (Guy Rolfe) and Hilary (Hilary Mason) Hartwicke. There’s something just slightly off about these two senior citizens, but Gabriel’s grandfatherly ways instantly win Judy over, and she’s especially entranced once she sees that the Hartwicke home is stuffed to the gills with rather fanciful looking dolls.

Soon another trio of refugees from the storm comes barging through the Hartwicke’s door (literally in fact). These include hapless young man Ralph (Stephen Morris), who has had the misfortune to pick up two British punk hitchhikers, Isabel (Bunty Bailey) and Enid (Cassie Stuart). Hilary kindly offers these six a room for the evening until the storm blows over, and of course that’s when the mayhem begins.

Initially only little Judy seems to understand that the dolls scattered around the Hartwicke manor are not exactly inanimate, but her harridan stepmother and unempathetic father are no help to her, insisting she’s simply imagining things, even after she sees one of the obnoxious hitchhikers carted away by what Judy describes as “elves”. Ultimately Ralph gets involved (and is initially suspected of having done something to the missing girl by the other hitchhiker), and Ralph and Judy become a rather unlikely pair in investigating what’s really going on in these spooky environs.

Dolls never is able to quite get to the level of whimsy it needs to, but it has a rather nice, even goofy, sense of humor about itself, with the character of Ralph especially being played for almost Benny Hill-esque slapstick laughs at times. There’s a rather well done denouement in the film, where the Hartwickes’ creative endeavors are finally explained and a bit of method to the foregoing madness is doled out. Performances are generally very good, especially the rather winning little Lorraine as Judy. Gordon doesn’t really concentrate on the gore here, and in fact plays most of the violent scenes for at least as many laughs as chills. Still, for its own particular low rent charms, Dolls is certainly a diverting enough toy to play with for an hour and a half or so.

Dolls Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dolls is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory (an imprint of Shout! Factory) with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. While there's some expected age related wear and tear visible in the elements used for this transfer, including occasional minus density and flecks, overall things are in surprisingly good condition. Colors are very nicely saturated and accurate looking, with all important reds popping especially well. In brighter lit scenes (which aren't that plentiful, frankly), detail, clarity and sharpness are all very good to excellent. Solid and consistent black levels help to make the many darker sequences look good as well, though detail is sometimes mitigated by the overwhelming shadows. There are a lot of opticals in this film and as a result grain can sometimes ebb and flow with any given shot, but the good news is there is a very visible and overall natural looking grain field, with no signs of either over aggressive noise reduction or digital sharpening. There are no obvious compression artifacts that I noticed in the frequently quite dark presentation.

Dolls Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Dolls features DTS-HD Master Audio mixes in both 2.0 and 5.1. There's an obvious uptick in low end on the 5.1 track, but perhaps surprisingly lower registers are quite fulsome in the 2.0 iteration as well. The surround track does offer a lot of well done immersive effects, especially once the nattering, chattering dolls kick into action, though on occasion the split effects have a quasi-phased quality, which seems to afflict some repurposed 5.1 mixes some of the time. The film is frankly not helped very much by its synth-laden score by Fuzzbee Morse and Victor Spiegel, a score that tends to browbeat the listener rather than subtly supporting the tension. Still, the score is very nicely splayed through the surrounds in the 5.1 mix. Fidelity is excellent, dynamic range is very wide, and there are no problems of any kind to report.

Dolls Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Toys of Terror: The Making of Dolls (1080p; 38:22). This is another typically excellent Scream Factory "making of" supplement, with excellent interviews with many of the principal creatives involved.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080i; 2:32)


• Film to Storyboard Comparison (1080p; 8:21) offers a picture in picture look at various sequences.


• Still Gallery (1080p; 4:11)


• Audio Commentary by Director Stuart Gordon and Writer Ed Maha. This is probably the more consistently informative of the two commentaries, at least in terms of the writing and shooting process. There are some dead spots as the two seem to get wrapped up in actually watching the film, but there's lots of good anecdotal information here.


• Audio Commentary by Cast Members Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, Stephen Lee, Carrie Lorraine, and Ian Patrick Williams. This is a bit more haphazard, but some may find it more enjoyable as a result, with the performers having a fun time recalling the shoot.

Dolls Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Child's Play may be the eighties' film about a malevolent killer doll that everyone remembers, but Dolls (which actually predated little Chucky by a year more or less) is perhaps overall the more enjoyable entry in this subgenre, at least for those who don't mind some patently goofy humor attending the more traditional horror movie slash and dash antics. With fun if perhaps not Oscar worthy performances and a brisk directorial style, Dolls gets to its (sharp and deadly) point quickly and manages to wrap things up with a bit of fairy tale justice and happily ever after (for those who deserve it, of course). Technical merits are generally very strong, and once again Scream has assembled a very enjoyable supplementary package. Recommended.