A
precious girl named Judy Bower (Carrie
Lorriane) along with her nasty father
David and her stepmother Rosemary are
stranded with their vehicle near an old
mansion as they encounter a dollmaker
named Gabriel Harwicke (Guy Rolfe) and
his wife Hilary (Hilary Mason) as they
all stay for the night including some
wild teenage partygoers too.
Judy is excited about the dolls but they
are very suspicious as she encounters one
of the teenage girls named Isabel Prange
(Bunty Bailey) being tortured to death by
some of them.
She goes to the aid of a sensitive and
caring man named Ralph Morris (Stephen
Lee) who doesn't believe her story until
he sees for himself and also talks to her
parents but they get verbally abusive
with her and accusing her for making up
such ridiculous tales.
But the guests there are being offed one
by one and possibly becoming dolls
themselves.
This was like a
pre-version of Puppet Master
and a very lame and boring one too.
The film tries to be scary but due to a
lack of a good budget and comedic
dialogues it fails miserably. However,
there are some interesting effects so it
is saved from bombing but that doesn't
mean much.
Good thing a sequel never arose.
The acting is
badly performed by most of the cast
members in this one. Lead actor Ian
Patrick Williams is way too over the
top as an abusive father in the film and
really gets too carried away.
Carolyn Purdy-Gordon is almost
passable as a wicked stepmother and
second wife of Williams' character but
yet she is a little too silly.
Child actress Carrie Lorraine tries
to be cute and charming as the daughter
that's what I mean she TRIES to be and is
very annoying.
However, Guy Rolfe seems to know
his craft as the dollmaker in the film
and carries on his trait as Toulon for
the Puppet Master
series.
Hilary Mason also stands out well
playing his wife and performs quite well.
Stephen Lee seems pretty good at
being a comedic type to the film and so
we should give him some credit too.
A woman's arm is
bitten off by a monstrous gigantic
teddybear
Eyeballs are popped out
A face is sliced off
The directing by Stuart
Gordon is incredibly stale and
doesn't whip the film in shape all that
much.
He didn't make the first scene at all
believeable that involves Patrick
Williams, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon and
Carrie Lorraine when they are
driving in their car in a storm and then
trying to look for shelter after it
breaks down.
However he shows some interesting camera
shots like on both Guy Rolfe and
Hilary Mason as they look creepy in
their first appearance especially when Rolfe
is pointing a gun at the family for
trespassing.
We see a great dream sequence with a
teddy bear growing gigantic with fangs
attacking both Williams and Purdy-Gordon's
characters giving it a nice low budget
horrror feel to it.
There's also nice shots on the dolls when
they start to have evil expressions on
their faces as well as attacking many of
the people at the house.
Towards the end there's a perfect shot on
Williams' character transforming
into a doll.
Also, there's an interesting set with Rolfe
and Lorraine mingling with Lorraine
and Stephen Lee on what had
happened trying to convionce them that
they had a nightmare.
Most of the dialogue that was directed in
this piece was rather slow like the
writing involved.
Fuzzbee Morse has
real lame synthesizer playing to the film
as he tries very hard to make it sound
original as possible but doesn't succeed.
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