Dolly Dearest (1991)

I've been restless the last hours, because my partner is finally coming home after being away to Poland for a month now. It's hard to concentrate on anything, so I picked out Dolly Dearest from the collection and gave it a shot. I never felt interest in seeing it, because I thought it would be a totally rip-off on Child's Play, but no. And yes. The only reason this movie was made was that Child's Play was a big success, which is fair enough. But what the original don't have is an old Maya temple and a whole gang of evil dolls trying to take over the world.

Sam Bottoms is Elliot Wade, who just bought a doll factory in Mexico (?!?!?!) and planning to start a new life there with his wife (Denise Crosby) and two children. But as soon as the visit the rundown factory the daughter finds a doll that she really wants. It becomes her best friend, and she starts to get more and more aggressive and moody. What the family don't know is that a and old South American spirit, maybe the devil himself, has escaped from his crypt and taken over all the Dolly Dearest-dolls in the factory! And now, everyone must die!

It wasn't that bad. The producer is Pierre David, Canada's Roger Corman it feels like sometime. He always puts out okey, but seldom unique movies and I'm always entertained. The good thing here was to stay away from the whole serial killer, city-thing like in Child's Play. A Mexico-setting and an underground temple is good, and makes it more fun visually. But I reacted directly to this idea to move to Mexico and take over an old doll factory that the family never have seen before, which seems like a very stupid idea and a bit far-fetched. 

The effects are quite good, and the doll herself looks creepy and the illusion of her coming alive works for me. Not much on the gore front though, expect when a character gets his hand stuck in a sewing Machine. Dolly Dearest also has slick look and could pass for a bigger horror movie, if it was made in the eighties and had even more gore and killer-dolls.

Anyway, not bad, but nothing I would watch again.