Review: Doll House (short)

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2018

Images from the Internet

Doll House

Produced and directed by Alan Dillingham

Killatainment

27 minutes, 2017

www.killatainment.com

[To be heard in Rod Serling’s voice:] Imagine if you will a nice family: Jim (Christopher Pike) and Sarah (Elle Doucette Matarazzo) and their two cute girls (Isabella Cottrell and Gabrielle Mudgett) playing an innocent game of Life, when lunacy came to their door in the form of Doll Face (Sheri Collins Lee) and her knife. [Okay, exit Rod.]

When dealing with a slasher motif, or variations of it, many times directors feel they have to take a stab (sorry…) at blood and gore right off the bat to establish the seriousness of the situation, or being afraid of losing the audience. I believe this is underestimating most of those watching, or pandering to those who grew up on the major studios who only want to entice the dollars.

The director here makes a more wise choice and holds off… for a little bit, anyway… but still manages to clearly present the – err – clear and present danger to the family unit. Doll Face is evidently mad as she searches for a family to “join” in a more, well let’s just say rambunctious way (remember, time element of the film) than, say, The Stepfather (1987). Lee plays her with glee and holds nothing back, with a laugh that could chill ice cream.

But there are at least three surprises that I certainly did not see coming, and I will not give them away because it really is worth seeing. Doll Face’s character just keeps getting more interesting, even if it doesn’t get very deep (again, it’s a short). You just know you’re dealing with someone who is creepy, and the superb make-up job on her and the appliance SFX effects around the action are worth paying attention.

My one complaint is sound-related, in that the music that is used (actually, a perfect soundtrack for the action) tends to overshadow the dialog a bit, but not enough to drown it; it’s more a mild distraction.

The film has no compulsions to go hog wild bloody, without being overly clinical about it, which is something I like as it’s a fine line in a cinematic world that is filled with the dreaded “look what I can do!” mentality. Sometimes just presenting the violence as what it is, is all that is needed to get the mood set, and this release has just the right touch.