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Garishly adorned with a visually arresting, albeit disingenuous poster, strongly suggesting that Death Doll's content is luridly centred around the murderously ambulatory machinations of a child's demonic doll, à la Stuart Gordon's 'Dolls', independent filmmaker William Mims's engaging, unfairly neglected VHS-era horror obscurity provides, in actuality, some pleasingly eerie 'Woman Alone' melodramatics, essentially being a paranoid, dark-edged, slow-burning psychological thriller, rather than a vapid, Top-popping, blood n' guts teen-screamer.
The beautiful, if somewhat fragile Talia Shire-lookalike Trish Keller (Andrea Walters) and husband Bobby (Philip Boatwright) have a brief, Amicus-style foreshadowing event with the mechanical, grim-voiced Madame Zerba, an ancient-looking, coin-operated soothsaying automaton, bluntly prophesying that a rather grim future might be in store for the young, affable couple. Closely following this delightfully quaint Roald Dahl interlude, 'Death Doll' settles into the cosily familiar trope of lone female protagonist tormented by a malign, unseen threat, the stock narrative given a little extra pathos by the fact that big-eyed, sweet-natured Trish is heavily pregnant and is frequently alone, this angsty estrangement boosting her tired 'TV Movie of the Week' plight with some additionally potent emotional ballast.
'Death Doll' is, on occasion, a trifle tepid, but, it can also be said that it frequently makes for an enjoyably hokey late night shocker, with splendidly spooky, dark-corridor'd interludes, and a foreboding sense of skin-jangling jeopardy to maintain more open-minded genre fans interest, not least being the fine performances, Trish being an entirely sympathetic imperilled lead and her shadowy brother in-law Dillon (William Dance) being no less of a three dimensional figure. Even with its obvious budgetary and narrative limitations, 'Death Doll' has a number of surprisingly effective 'don't-go-in-there!!!!' moments, and poor beleaguered Trish's heightened anxiety and increasing paranoia is given greater verisimilitude by the menacing swell of Bruce Miller's exceptionally fine music. William Mims's video-dazed 80s curio 'Death Doll' isn't essential, but it fitfully provided some strangely compelling weirdness in its B-Movie basic, creepy-creaky 'Tales of The Unexpected' fashion!
The beautiful, if somewhat fragile Talia Shire-lookalike Trish Keller (Andrea Walters) and husband Bobby (Philip Boatwright) have a brief, Amicus-style foreshadowing event with the mechanical, grim-voiced Madame Zerba, an ancient-looking, coin-operated soothsaying automaton, bluntly prophesying that a rather grim future might be in store for the young, affable couple. Closely following this delightfully quaint Roald Dahl interlude, 'Death Doll' settles into the cosily familiar trope of lone female protagonist tormented by a malign, unseen threat, the stock narrative given a little extra pathos by the fact that big-eyed, sweet-natured Trish is heavily pregnant and is frequently alone, this angsty estrangement boosting her tired 'TV Movie of the Week' plight with some additionally potent emotional ballast.
'Death Doll' is, on occasion, a trifle tepid, but, it can also be said that it frequently makes for an enjoyably hokey late night shocker, with splendidly spooky, dark-corridor'd interludes, and a foreboding sense of skin-jangling jeopardy to maintain more open-minded genre fans interest, not least being the fine performances, Trish being an entirely sympathetic imperilled lead and her shadowy brother in-law Dillon (William Dance) being no less of a three dimensional figure. Even with its obvious budgetary and narrative limitations, 'Death Doll' has a number of surprisingly effective 'don't-go-in-there!!!!' moments, and poor beleaguered Trish's heightened anxiety and increasing paranoia is given greater verisimilitude by the menacing swell of Bruce Miller's exceptionally fine music. William Mims's video-dazed 80s curio 'Death Doll' isn't essential, but it fitfully provided some strangely compelling weirdness in its B-Movie basic, creepy-creaky 'Tales of The Unexpected' fashion!