Dolly Dearest (1991)

User Rating:

4.0/10   

Director:

Maria Lease

Writers:

Maria Lease (screenplay)
Maria Lease (story)

Release Date:

tammikuu 1992 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

It's time to play...

Plot:

An American family moves to Mexico to fabricate dolls, but their toyfactory happens to be next to a...

Plot Keywords:

Toy | Slasher | Evil Doll | Doll Factory | Talking Doll

Awards:

3 nominations

Cast

Denise Crosby	...	Marilyn Wade
Sam Bottoms	...	Elliot Wade
Rip Torn	...	Karl Resnick
Chris Demetral	...	Jimmy Wade
Candace Hutson	...	Jessica Wade (as Candy Hutson)
Lupe Ontiveros	...	Camilla
Enrique Renaldo	...	Estrella
Alma Martinez	...	Alva (as Alma Martínez)
Will Gotay	...	Luis
Rene Victor	...	Nun at the Convent
Luis Cortez	...	Peter
Jaime Gomez	...	Hector
Brass Adams	...	Bob Larabe

MPAA:

Rated R for horror violence.

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Ultra Stereo

Certification:

UK:15 | Iceland:16 | Netherlands:16 | USA:R (certificate #31054)

Filming Locations:

Santa Clarita, California, USA

Company:

Channeler Enterprises

Trivia:

One of the production-used dolls was recently auctioned on eBay.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Sometimes the 'dolly double' is distinguishable, due to height or size differences between shots or scenes.

Quotes:

[last lines]
Marilyn: Honey, it's over.

Interesting storyline, wrong "Child's Play" influences.

"Dolly Dearest" is a little early 90's horror flick with some pretensions. The storyline can be considered as a mix between the late 80's hit "Child's Play" and "Poltergeist II".

The whole "son of the devil" plot is quite interesting considering that it's linked with the delightful Maya civilization (a mystery sorrounds it's banishing from earth). The plot is imaginative until the dolls come to life.

"Child's Play" excuse to bring the doll to life is actually believable for people that are familiar with occultism, black magic, and voodoo.

"Dolly Dearest" copied the Chucky idea in order to seduce horror junkies but it failed big time.

The premise of the movie doesn't help it because the idea had been taken years before and the publicity campaign for the movie didn't say anything about the whole "son of the devil" thing.

OK the plot is something you've seen and it doesn't helps that the acting is AWFUL, the direction is boring and dull, the score is lame, and the f/x are laughable. To me, the best moment of the movie is when Rip Torn's character discovers the skeleton of the "son of the devil" (the body of a boy with the head of a goat). That was the only creepy moment.

Most of the situations are absurd. For example, the brat blonde girl talks with a possessed voice (like in "The Exorcist") and her geeky brother says something like "wow you learned how to speak". The line is stupid but you need to see the scene to get as mad as me. Also there are 2 huge goofs: The first one is when police determines that Luis death was caused by a heart stroke but they don't mention that his hand was almost cut in half! Then, you can hear from the police car's radio American people talking trying to imitate the Mexican accent. Why would American people work for the Mexican police!? The producers couldn't find more Mexican extras.

"Dolly Dearest" had potential but it's problem came when deciding which movie ideas to mix. The "Poltergeist" inspiration went well but stealing the idea of "Child's Play" didn't work while trying to put it on the storyline.

3/10. Boring early 90's cheese. No gore, no scares.