One of my fondest memories as a kid was sneaking through the Horror section at my local Blockbuster Video. It was here that I was introduced to the stunning VHS box-art designed to titillate as well as horrify. But there was one movie’s cover that stood out from all the others and that movie was DOLLS.
You see; in the days before streaming, before blu-ray, before even DVDS, we had VHS. Bulky tapes that required rewinding. That needed Vertical Hold adjustments to get a clear picture. Tapes that your VHS player could randomly eat and destroy. These wonderful relics dominated home entertainment as early as the late 70s and stayed popular until the early 2000s when DVD finally took their place. And while I do miss taping my favorite television shows as they aired live, I don’t miss the hassle that came with owning VHS. They took up a ton of space. Rewinding them was a pain in the ass and you never knew when your favorite tape would finally degrade to the point of being unwatchable.
That said, there is something that I do miss about the VHS tapes of yore. That being the box art. They grabbed your attention with their heavily stylized and usually hand-drawn artwork.
What made these so memorable, however, was that some art did not even depict a scene from the actual movie. Instead it exercised creative liberties with the movie’s overall concept. One example would be the box art for the horror-comedy HOUSE. It showed an overly detailed rotting hand ringing a doorbell. I remember it terrifying me whenever I saw it at my local Blockbuster Video. The brown flesh, the cracked fingernails, the visible muscle and bone; how could this movie NOT be scary?
Chopping Mall is another one that stands out. The robotic hand carrying a blood red shopping bag with body parts poking out of it. I learned later that the art had nothing to do with the movie but still! It looked awesome!
You have Fright Night with the clouds forming a vampire’s face above a house, Critters with a Crite standing center stage with that creepy, hungry smile upon it’s face. WaxWork with the butler opening a door to a wall of twisted monstrous faces. And who could forget ALIEN with its minimalist style of a single Xeno egg floating in the darkness of space.
Beautiful. All of them.
But then you had movies that were a mix of live action and hand drawn art. One of my personal favorites was the cover for Dead Alive (Brain Dead). It had a woman pulling her lips apart while a screaming skull peaked out from the inside of her mouth. Or what about THEY LIVE with a closeup of Roddy Piper’s face with an alien reflection in his sunglasses?
You have Tremors with the live action cast standing in the desert with a hand-drawn Graboid tentacle coming up from beneath them and Nancy’s frightened face with Freddy’s claws over her face in the original Nightmare on Elm Street VHS Cover.
The fact is, these covers were a work of art and although every movie had their own style, it was the horror genre that took box art to a different level.
Which leads me to today’s Retrospective.
Dolls (1986): A Visceral Treat for the Eyes.
As I mentioned earlier, there was one movie that stood out among all the others and that movie was Dolls. Dolls had some of the creepiest box art that I had ever seen. It was of a dolly in a red dress and black curly hair. The left side of her face was flawless. Shadows, however, bathed the right side of her face. Through these shadows you could make out the hint of a human skull. Contained within both of her hands, risen for the audience to see, were a pair of human eyes.
It had its desired effect. It scared the living hell out of me. This box art was one of those images that I would see whenever I was alone in the dark. I would imagine that little doll in my closet; staring at me with those empty eye sockets. I hadn’t even seen the movie and already I was afraid of it!
But what about the movie itself?
The original release of Dolls came during the 1985 Italian MILFED Film Festival. It’s story revolves around several people who become stranded in a gigantic mansion during a horrible thunderstorm. As it turns out, the mansion is home to former toymakers Gabriel and Hilary Hartwicke; both of whom welcome the strangers to stay the night.
The group includes a young girl named Judy and her despicable father David and equally foul stepmother Rosemary; businessman Ralph, and hitchhikers Isabel and Enid. The kind-hearted Hartwickes are more than happy to let them stay the night as long as they all behave themselves.
Judy, ever the curious one, discovers that the mansion is chalk full of wonderful toys. This includes stuffed animals, marionettes, and beautifully detailed dolls. Gabriel tells Judy that he and his wife were toy makers and these were their toys. The collection enthralls not only Judy but also the businessman Ralph. As it turns out, Ralph has never outgrown his fondness for toys and is very excited to see such a collection. It does not take long for Judy and Ralph to become friends; having bonded over their mutual love for the Hartwickes’ work.
But the fun doesn’t last long. As the guests turn in for the night, one of the hitchhikers sneak out of their room with the intent of robbing the mansion. What they find instead is a pack of pissed off dolls who brutally attack the hitchhiker. Judy witnesses this event and tries to warn her parents who promptly ignore then punish her for “making up stories”. Upset, she turns to Ralph who, having seen some of the dolls move himself, believes her. Now they must team up to survive the rest of the evening while also figuring out the mystery behind the killer toys and their creators.
Right off the bat I want to talk about the movie’s special effects. They are absolutely fantastic. The crew used a mixture of marionettes, stop motion, and animatronics to bring the dolls to life and it works wonderfully. Because of the different styles of movement, it gives each toy their own distinct aura of creepiness. The jittery, twitchy stop-motion just gives a sense of wrongness to some of the dolls’ movements. Compare this to the dolls controlled by animatronics – with their eyes moving slowly in their eye sockets, their limbs moving smoothly, almost as if they were actually alive – all of which add a sense of danger to these particular toys.
Then you have the bounciness of the marionettes that somehow provide a weird sense of silliness, yet realness, of the situation. There is a scene, for example, in which a marionette gets set on fire. Its body begins bouncing and jerking about as if someone is yanking on its strings. I don’t know why but it just makes the doll feel that much more real. Like it’s actually reacting to the fire. I mean, we know there is a stagehand off camera pulling on the strings to make it move but because we never see the strings or the person pulling it, it just makes the doll feel alive.
On top of that we have the fact that the dolls are not just hollow shells but actual living, breathing creatures complete with a skeleton, muscles, and functional organs. Whenever they take damage, chunks of ceramic break off exposing their ooey gooey insides. It is a wonderful little detail that piles onto that sense of wrongness that I mentioned earlier. It makes us question the toys’ origins. Where did they really come from? How did Hartwickes manufacture them? Are they truly alive or are they possessed by something out of this world? I absolutely love it.
The same cannot be said for some of the characters. While there is nothing wrong with our victims, they do amount to nothing more than a bunch of walking cliches. You have the neglectful father, the cruel stepmother, and the greedy punk rockers. They don’t really have any development outside of their one personality trait but you know what? That’s okay. We are not supposed to root for these people. They are all despicable one way or another which makes watching them get what is coming to them that much more enjoyable.
That said, we do get some great development between Judy and Ralph. As the only characters with good intentions and kind hearts, we cannot help but worry for Judy and Ralph’s safety. I could not help but love the bond that forms between them.
I also enjoyed the toymakers Gabriel and Hilary. They are not just mindless psychopaths, luring people into their home to die for their own sick pleasure. There is a method to their madness and it makes them that much more interesting to watch. In fact, they remind me a lot of John Kramer from the SAW franchise with their philosophy on appreciating the little things in life. I don’t want to go into too much detail but there is a lot more to the Hartwickes than meets the eye.
Then we come to the gore. We get some pretty wicked kills – from someone having their eyes gouged out and replaced with doll eyes, body parts being sliced and chopped with little knives and saw blades, and even a firing squad! But the highlight comes from the doll’s themselves.
Like I said before, the dolls all contain these slimy, almost mummified bodies beneath their ceramic shells. So, seeing their true forms come out whenever they are damaged is a real treat. And they are not created equal either. Some are look as if they had been dead for decades whereas others look as if they were recently deceased. Some have pumping organs, some have red and white muscles, and some even have their eyes intact. I love the variety as it keeps each reveal fresh and unique.
Honestly, I love this movie. The story is simple yet solid enough to keep you engaged, the kills are fun, the special effects top notch, and the victims despicable enough for us to root against. And honestly? I really do believe that this movie helped pave the way for other movies such as Child’s Play and Puppet Master. It contains many elements that both franchises would explore in greater detail and I feel like the effects for Dolls helped inspire the way Chuckie and the Puppets would be animated in the future.
I will always recommend Dolls to anyone who’d listen. It’s fun. It’s unique. And it is one of the few movies that lived up to its terrifying VHS cover.
Please give it a go when you have the chance. I do not think you will be disappointed.
