Pinnochio Sematery

Stand tall, little ones. This is YOUR month to shine, and shine you shall...even when 

you’ve been buried in a Charles Band cemetery since 2005 possessed by the Full Moon spirit circa 1991.

Quick Plot: In 1905, a young girl named Sophia survives her cruel single father with the comfort of her ugly and politically incorrect collection of dolls. When she breaks a vase during playtime, Pops punishes Sophia by forcing her to bury her friends in the backyard, a stressful little process that leads to her bumping her head and apparently, dying instantly. Rather than do something moral like call a doctor or check your pulse, Dad decides to cover Sophia with her pals as the film flashes forward a century.

New millennium, new family, still headed by a single dad (still played by the poor man’s Tim Roth, Ken Lyle). We also have self-proclaimed hottie senior Deedee and her geeky little brother Guy, a kid with a soft spot for collectibles. He happens to discover the burial ground of Sophia’s dolls on the same night Dad’s got a date and slutty big sis is having an unauthorized, uninteresting house party with the token jock jerks, blond bimbo, and good girl. In no time, the dirt-caked, vendetta-holding dollies are scurrying around the house with tiny guns loaded, jagged teeth sharpened, and stabby sticks aimed.

Doll Graveyard is a Charles Band production, a fact you can smell from the very first glimpse of Sophia’s horrifically adorable toys. Between the sweetly sleazy Blood Dolls and the tamest women-in-prison B-movie ever made that was Dangerous Worry Dolls, I’m starting to wonder if Band actually purchased all rights to the word ‘doll’ when used in films. I’ve also learned to expect a few hallmarks:

-Neat effects and unique doll designs not without their charms

-Tiny glassy eyes that rarely blink

-Questionable but generally high energy levels of acting

-Very little attempt to explain any form of backstory for the highly fantastical plotline

The final point is the oddest, as Doll Graveyard is barely 71 minutes long. And that’s including an opening credits sequence, best-of cast listing at the end, and slowest scrolling credits I’ve ever seen. It’s something of a shame that Doll Graveyard doesn’t stretch out its welcome a tad more. The body count is low and story barely there, but the dolls are as fun as anything in Band’s Puppet Master series and could have easily earned more screentime if the script gave them half a chance.

High Points

A good killer doll movie can only be as good as its own killer dolls (apologies, Cathy’s Curse) and it pleases me to say that the wrinkled Samurai, sad-eyed soldier, rotted baby and--dear me--well-hung Oogah Boogah are all interesting little creatures

Like many a Charles Band production, the instrumental score is quite grand and good

Low Points

Too many survivors is a problem I personally often cite with ‘nicer’ horror movies, but it’s especially apparent in Doll Graveyard, where we don’t really like anyone enough to need their survival, yet end the day with what feels like more characters than we started with

Lessons Learned

A samurai is also known as a hobo with a sword

Lincoln freed the slaves

When looking for your cell phone in a room that is clearly hosting a killer doll, approach with caution. Enter at normal speed, fumble through everything you see with nervous speed, but always be sure to pause, wait for the music to kick in, then reach--everrrrr sooooo sloooooooowllllllllyyyyyy--for your phone once you spot it, because clearly that’s what tension calls for

Rent/Bury/Buy

Doll Graveyard is, in its essence, a modern day Full Moon picture, meaning you can expect a certain amount of intrigue, cool kills, surprisingly well-orchestrated music, and an ultimate sense of twee. Even the most sensitive dollophobe (what are you looking at?) won’t really find anything to fear, though there’s enough to amuse certain fans .This is the kind of film that belongs on Instant Watch or tucked comfortably in a value pack, fun enough for a snow day that wasn’t or laundry folding accompaniment, but not worth a journey into your wallet.

You May Now Kill the Bride

It’s been a big week for holy matrimony, as California finally acknowledged that if Tom Cruise can stand below the veiled chin of three and counting women, then maybe same sex marriage isn’t the first sign of the modern apocalypse. And thus, in honor of progressivism and romance, I give you a few of horror cinema’s happiest--okay, really just horrific--wedding stories.

1. Beetlejuice

As wedding dresses go, one could do a whole lot worse than Winona Ryder’s epically burgundy ball gown in Tim Burton’s 1988 bizarro comedy. On the other hand, Michael Keaton’s ghostly menace seems like unfortunate husband material. Bad oral hygiene. A lust for underage women and the habit of hitting on everything without a Y chromosone. Thankfully, the 15 year old (!) Lydia is spared an eternity of fast-talking teleporting thanks to the divine intervention of giant snake. It’s how all weddings should end.

2. Flowers In the Attic

Not overly horrific and even less good, this unfortunate adaptation of the seminal teenage novel departs from its original (and superior) source material to end with the marriage of evil Corinne Dollanger to the wealthy playboy Bart Winslow. Though they would’ve made an attractive couple, the modest wedding is interrupted by the objection of her surviving children, a trio of sad-eyed blonds still a little sore from being locked up in a single bedroom (and titular attic)  for four years. What to give your cruel, homicidal mother for her big day? How about a sweet little cookie powdered in arsenic. 

3. Hausu

It’s the lack of a wedding that spurs the action (I think) in this surreal Japanese horror comedy (I think) about a sleepover gone horribly awry. Years ago, a woman only known as Auntie was engaged to a handsome young soldier whose untimely death birthed a bizarre curse over the house she waited in (seems like it). In a possible attempt to reclaim her past, the sometimes wheelchair-bound (and eyeball crunching) Auntie now lures marriable young women to her hidden estate in order to collect their energy (perhaps) to build her wedding dress and call back from the depths of death her long-lost fiance. Believe it or not, the movie makes far less sense than my description but there are worse crimes in cinema than kookiness.

 

4. Bride of Chucky

Chucky & Tiffany, together forever. The ring is six sizes too big and ripped off a still bloody corpse. The dress is second hand from an uptight doll and guest list a mere pair of kidnapped runaways, but despite a less than fairy tale start, these two crazy kids make it work. Need further proof? The best thing to come out of this miniature wedding night (i.e., Seed of Chucky) happens to be the best sequel to come out of this franchise.

5. Salo

When hosting a month of sexual debauchery with underage, unwilling victims, it’s apparently quite important to pack a one-size-fits-all wedding gown, or so the horrible Italian nobles of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1975 shocker prove. Between unappetizing, unsanitary feasts and being poked, chained, and urinated upon, a group of unlucky teens partake in underage, unconsummated marriage with both their peers and middle-aged captors. No matter how many drunken in-laws, overeager DJs or bridezillas you’ve encountered, there’s never been a less seemly wedding than in Salo.

6. Blood Dolls

He’s a pin-headed millionaire with a talent for creative kills. She’s a wealthy white collar criminal mastermind with a taste for leather. He wears an oversized stone mask. She wears very little. His only companions are a kidnapped girl band, trio of killer dolls and loyal clown-faced butler. She’s unfulfilled by a pea-brained husband with a penchant for thongs. In many ways, the ruthless villains of Blood Dolls are made for each other, even if they spend the first 80 minutes of this Full Moon cheapie plotting the other’s demise. Although their unexpected marriage is initially doomed by a Clue-like fake ending, Virgil and Moira are saved by the divine intervention of a stoic, spiritual servant with the painted face of a circus clown. Just like Diana and Charles.

Pimp Dolly

Some movies try awfully hard to just be awful. It's not enough, they say, to have a dwarf henchman; they go one step further by putting an eyepatch on said dwarf henchman and making him the keeper of an awful, occasionally nude girl band musicalized by electricity.

Yup. Blood Dolls is that kind of movie. 

And thus I spent 90 minutes with a film that clearly wanted nothing more than to make its audience say "That was weirrrrrrd." 

Granted, I've done this about as many times as I've brushed my teeth and sometimes, it works. In addition to hard rock and zombies, Hard Rock Zombies incorporates Nazis, self-cannibalistic dwarfs (apparently that's the go-to for ambitiously bizarre film), glorified statutory rape, and big heads, but it works due to its let's-have-fun spirit. Blood Dolls, a 1999 schlockfest from Full Moon, feels more as though writer/director/Full Moon granddaddy Charles Band patrolled a horror convention, took notes on merchandising and fashion, mixed it in a used blender still soiled with leftovers from past films, and made a movie out of it.

Quick Plot: Eccentric billionaire Virgil Travis has just lost a fortune to crooked former partners and thus his revenge scheme is about to take its bloody birth. Using a few racially stereotyped dolls shrunken down from a few former acquaintances that led to his downfall (black judge as pimp, Asian lawyer as dragon lady) and his deadpan juggalo-esque butler, the Southahn gentleman Virgil orders death by hand weight, gunshot, and tiny knife while the real instigator behind the money laundering reveals herself as the seemingly meek and good-hearted Moira, wife of Virgil's former business partner. The biggest twist comes when we first see Moira in the comfort of her home, where the dark-haired beauty proves to be a brilliant minded dominatrix feeding off the physical pain and sexual submission of daft, usually leashed hubby Harrison. 

Did I mention Virgil is eccentric? It's an important plot detail, but thankfully, you probably won't miss it due to the caged leather-clad girl rock group he keeps in his living room and stone head mask he wears over his itty Beelteguice head. Subtlety is not a selling point when it comes to Full Moon.

Blood Dolls is an exercise in forced wackiness, a sort of Leprechaun in Louisiana seasoned with the oddities of Bloodsucking Freaks (dwarf, caged women, torture, etc.). I found it tiresome and forced, but occasionally, slightly cute. Debra Mayer's role as the kinky mastermind was actually enjoyable, although it left me rooting for her simply because I couldn't respect any character who was amused by such obnoxious and bland music.

High Points

While the idea of his presence begins rather ridiculously, William Paul Burns's solemn performance as a very spiritual painted face right-hand man actually becomes funnier as the film progresses

Low Points

Even with warp speed kills, a single flimsy plot, and a dual ending, Blood Dolls stretches out its should-be-short running time to 90 minutes by adding dull rock song after dull rock song. I suppose a film has to fill out space for Sunday afternoon airings on SyFy, but Blood Dolls pads itself more obviously than a 14 year old girl at a school dance

Lessons Learned

Behind every mentally retarded man is a very kinky woman with a high IQ

There are worse things in life than being kidnapped, locked in a cage, and forced to perform bad rock music for a sadistic billionaire; you could be the sadistic billionaire who has to listen

Dwarfs carry singles

Rent/Bury/Buy

Blood Dolls will please many fans of the let's-be-as-goofy-as-we-can subgenre of horror comedy. Personally, I tend to have a rotating membership to that club, enjoying some of those films (ThanksKilling ) and hating others that just try too hard (Snakes On a Plane). I will concede that I began enjoying Blood Dolls much later in the story, when the whole "How crazy can we be?" attitude had settled and Band let his characters have their story. By the time I got to the Clue-like alternate ending, I was invested enough to smile, but perfectly pleased when it was over. That’s that. Now pass the gouda.