Dolls

DOLLS After tackling writer H.P. Lovecraft with his first two feature films, Re-Animator (1985) and From Beyond (1986), writer-director Stuart Gordon shifted gears for his next outing at Charles Band's Empire Pictures. By this point, the company had become a reliable name on home video, though it had scored a recent modest success with its family-friendly fantasy film, Troll (1986). Just as fantastic but far less appropriate for kids was Gordon's Dolls (1987), which found the director and regular producer Brian Yuzna eschewing their stock company of actors to that point (apart from Gordon's wife, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, who takes on a primary villainess role). Here the new actors include Stephen Lee, who would become a regular Gordon player himself (and who passed away too young in 2014), and a pair of names that may be familiar to fans of the horror genre: Guy Rolfe from Mr. Sardonicus (1961) and Hilary Mason from Don't Look Now (1973). The most surprising casting here may be familiar to kids of the 1980s, music video face Bunty Bailey (as an ill-fated new waver), who had been dating a-ha lead singer Morten Harket and starred in their famous music videos for "Take on Me" and "The Sun Always Shines on TV." Charles Band himself viewed all of these films as "loss leaders" on the big screen in order to pave the way for the more lucrative home video deals. The production of this film actually took place just before From Beyond which was already in the planning stage with the intention of mounting a third Lovecraft film based on "Dreams in the Witch House" (which Gordon would eventually realize as part of the Showtime TV series Masters of Horror). Band had the script for Dolls written by Trolls scribe Ed Naha, and Gordon was then brought on to bring it to life. Naha had already been enlisted with scripting the film based on a concept poster at Band's request depicting a killer doll, an idea that would later find legs at Band's subsequent company, Full Moon, with the string of Puppet Master films and crossovers. Purdy-Gordon was more than happy to take a larger role here as one of her trademark "evil bitches" (as she states in the film's making-of documentary), a wicked stepmother who makes life hell for young Judy (Carrie Lorraine). When the family ends up stranded on a dark and stormy night at a house run by two sinister toymakers with other interlopers coming along soon after, the stage is set for a macabre comeuppance against those who have no respect for the virtues of childhood. Though the film didn't originate with Gordon, with its confined setting and snippy rejoinders swapped between its nastier characters, the material suits his background as a veteran theatrical company director from Chicago. He also reveals an affinity for classic horror that's more subdued than his flamboyant Lovecraft films, including extended suspense set pieces that sometimes end in people being decimated by sentient, porcelain doll squads. Production for the film took place at an Italian soundstage acquired by Band that had once belonged to the legendary Dino De Laurentiis, with the house constructed in an area containing artefacts from films ranging from Barbarella (1968) to Red Sonja (1985), according to the crew. Both the effects team and cinematographer Mac Ahlberg used a number of practical tricks to pull off the doll attack scenes ranging from stop motion to photographic illusions, paving the way for the killer doll antics that would hit the mainstream soon after with Child's Play (1988). With its striking artwork of a doll holding out its plucked eyeballs, Dolls proved to be another feather in Gordon's cap and led to one final film at Empire, Robot Jox, which proved to be a far more troubled and expensive production shot in 1987 but released two years later after the original company had ceased to exist. By Nathaniel Thompson