Instant Horror Crap: Dolly Dearest

Oh joy, the rip-off of a franchise that I don't care for.  Today's film is Dolly Dearest, a 1992 film trying to be Friday the 13th.  No, of course not- it's Child's Play.  To be fair, the killer doll idea is not a bad one.  At a certain point, however, an audience says 'Hey- it's just a doll.'  It's at that point that you have to explain why they don't just smash it.  Very few of them answer this conundrum very well, which is part of my problem with this sub-genre.  Enough vague insults- let's move on to the actual film.  It's Child's Play- only it's in Mexico with an evil spirit in a girl doll.  I can see the creative juices just flowing off of the page!  The film stars Denise Crosby and Sam Bottoms aka the brother of Timothy Bottoms.  Timothy is someone you might remember for playing George W. Bush is both That's My Bush! and DC 9/11.  How he did both is still beyond me.  This film is not easy to find, as evidenced by the clearly-VHS print that Netflix has on Streaming.  Why someone demanded a Blu-Ray release for Heavyweights and not this is also beyond me.  Regardless, let's see why this film is both hilarious and awful...

A man invests the last bit of their family's money into a Doll Factory in Mexico.  In hindsight, it seems like a poor business model.  As un-luck would have it, an Evil Dead spirit escapes from a Crypt and inhabits one of the dolls.

The family's daughter quickly bonds with the doll, making this film into an awkward combination of an Exorcism movie and a Child's Play rip-off.  Joy.

The doll- and later dolls- decide to kill random people...because.  Since they're dolls and this is a shitty horror film, the kills take about five minutes to set up every time.  Thanks, Slasher Filler!

Oh and Rip Torn is (barely) in this movie.  It's not worth noting, save for his hilarious (and inconsistent) accent.

Since there is no Police- since the Police in Mexico are famously-lax (ha ha)-, there's no evidence of the doll being evil...so that dad doesn't buy it.

The silliest moment of the film comes when our Resident Mom confronts the doll, which sits in a chair to taunt her.  Seriously, they thought that this was both scary and not at all funny.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gah- who designed the doll to make the Exorcist face?!?  I mean, would that be a feature that you'd want to make?!?

Since this movie's ending is so stock- they blow up all of the dolls-, I don't even feel like showing a real still.  Stock explosion shot, ahoy!  The End.

It's stock as hell, but it is funny.  The good parts of the movie are generally the silly parts.  That's not to say that there's not some good Acting in the film.  Crosby and Bottoms both do good in their parts.  I liked Rip Torn here, but for all of the wrong reasons.  Half of the time, he looks like he's reading his Cue Cards from just behind the camera.  The other half of the time, he's doing this weird vaguely-Romanian accent.  Although he's barely in the movie, his attempts are fun- again, for all of the wrong reasons.  Speaking for the wrong reasons, the special effects.  The doll shots are made of decent animatronic work (I think that the Editing helps) and midgets in suits.  Seriously, it's that obvious!  It's still better than that weird bear thing from Barbarian though (which was actually a kid- creepy!).  Other than that, there are barely any effects to speak of.  That's good, since the one optical effect is crap and the one prosthetic shot sucks.  As a whole, it's a cheap rip-off, but it's still more fun to watch and laugh at than Child's Play 3.  Take us away, Ghana cover art I found online...

Next up, one last film (since I suck).  How about a Hammer film about someone who really can't stop murders.  Stay tuned...