2008 saw the release of the 20th anniversary edition of CHILD'S PLAY, a fantastic dvd which featured many awesome extras like behind the scenes footage, a convention panel Q&A with the cast, and multiple commentaries including one with Chucky himself. Despite the impressive supplementary material there was one important person missing: Director Tom Holland, who for reasons unknown was never asked to participate in the release
But thanks to http://www.iconsoffright.com/, Tom Holland was able to sit down with Tim Sullivan (2001 MANIACS) to record his own audio commentary for the film and made it available for free a mere week after the release of the dvd
It's great to hear Mr.Holland's memories regarding the film, it's a shame his presence wasn't requested but big kudos to Icons of fright for making this happen, I felt it would be great to feature it here and give the guy his due
A family moves to Mexico, where the father Elliot
will oversee a doll factory, housed nearby an archaeological venture
that inadvertently frees ancient mayan demons out into the land of the
living, which make their way to the nearby doll factory and claim the
dolls as hosts to their evil spirits
REVIEW
DOLLY DEAREST is one of those movies that you would pick out at the ma and pa video place mostly for shits and giggles. The type of movie that you could tell from the onset you wont be guaranteed entertainment but hope to at least pass the time laughing at how bad it is
Let's get it out of the way, yes it is very obvious this flick was spawned from the success of Chucky and the CHILD'S PLAY series, but while that movie had quite a lot going for it that made it a cult classic, DOLLY DEAREST is so empty conceptually it's ridiculous
Elliot's little daughter Jessica nabs a Dolly for herself, and gradually becomes trapped by it's evil influence, much to the chagrin of the family in particular Marilyn played by Denise Crosby (STAR TREK TNG, PET SEMATARY). Now, traditionally demons do have a hankering for possession, usually choosing hosts that can move freely, walk, blend in with society, able to use tools and that are not two feet tall, you know, people. When Charles Lee Ray transferred his soul into the good guy doll, he was shot, bleeding and near death, and had no other course but to go with the closest thing available, in DOLLY DEAREST the demons are set free and while having a short but plentiful supply of nearby humans to invade, they choose the dolls...
A long way from pazuzu, these retarded demons are
On that note despite all the dolls being possessed only one likes to get it's tiny hands dirty, the others do jack-shit until the end of the movie (I usually shy away from spoilers but if anything I’m doing you a favor)
Speaking of the doll, special effects can make or break a film that depends on them as much as a killer doll movie, may even serve to be a saving grace, where you could at least appreciate some technical mastery and have something neat to look at, after all film is a visual medium, and the Horror genre is absolutely ripe with the use of effective imagery. The effects here are barely almost-decent, I wasn't expecting an animatronic tour de force where the doll would do cartwheels and break-dance but at least try and make the doll not look stiff
THE GOOD
.I like the end-credits music, that's really it, not entirely sure if it's because the music itself is great or because it represents the end of the film
THE BAD
.Everything
THE FINAL CURTAIN
I remember as a kid at the San Diego Comic-con rabidly going through a box of discounted Fangorias and finding issue # 102, which has DOLLY DEAREST on the cover. I bought it, and upon reading the article I was aghast at director Maria Lease completely bad-mouthing the very movie she ripped off, like that would make people forget that CHILDS PLAY is 1000 times the movie DOLLY DEAREST isn't, not only was it dumb it was especially pathetic as she came nowhere close to backing up her shit
As far as killer doll movies, this scrapes the bottom of the barrel, this is the cheap shitty copy The Asylum (Transmorphers, Snakes on a train) would have released if they were around when CHILDS PLAY came out. Is it scary? It's as scary as stepping on a dirty gym sock, and as impressive to look at as watching a donkey fanning flies with it's tail. If you are a bad movie connoisseur (God knows why but they exist) It might get a reaction out of you, but as far as the old “so bad it's good” analogy applying here, it's slim to none
As you can probably deduce, I loathe this movie, I got a review for my site as a reward for watching it but 99.9% of the rest of the human population will get absolutely nothing but 90 mins of wasted time very horribly wasted. I kind of see it as a service to post a review for a movie this bad, it gives fair warning that glancing at it momentarily would give the impression of it being a cheap morsel of fun, but it's just that
cheap
It's on par with watching paint dry
RATING 0
*Available on Netflix instant streaming (If you must)
The city so good they named it twice
has a duck-quacking psycho killer on the loose
REVIEW
“He used a blade, he stuck it up her
joy trail, and slit her wide open”
Lucio Fulci is the man
THE BEYOND, CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD
(aka THE GATES OF HELL), HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, ZOMBI 2 known to many
of us as simply ZOMBIE, if you're a horror fan I need not say more,
all stupendous gory examples of classic Italian horror that
established Fulci in the company of other great Italian horror
directors such as Dario Argento and Mario Bava. While I love his work
one title from his filmography that always escaped me was THE NEW
YORK RIPPER, it was always on my list of “must watch” films and
seeing as how I'm currently on a big Italian horror fix I finally
caved in and put on Lo squartatore di New York
THE NEW YORK RIPPER wastes no time and
is quickly set in motion, 10 mins into the movie the Ripper's first
kill is committed in all it's tit-stabbing glory. The backdrop to all
the carnage is the wonderful big apple circa 1982, where our main
protagonist police Lt. Fred Williams is on the hunt for the
sanguinary sadist. The ripper is never actually seen on screen, thus
the real identity is shrouded in mystery, although we get our first
suspect in a mysterious man missing two fingers who hits the streets
for porno shops and adult movie theaters offering the most sextacular
sexciting and sexational live xxx shows on their marquee. But is he
the New york ripper? ..?? ?...?
Regardless one thing is certain, the
ripper is crazier than a shit-house rat, pussy-impaling helpless
girls all the while duck-quacking and taunting the police with
conceited glee. There's no hockey mask, no fashionable attire, no
funny banter, even his killing implements are beyond simplicity, the
one thing that defines the NY ripper is pure bat-shit insanity. It's
a trait shared with other human movie killers like Leatherface and
Norman Bates, driven by psychosis and an eccentric murderous desire
that needs to be filled, in this case, killing beautiful spry women
The ripper likes to work messy too
Nothing near the eye-poking of ZOMBIE
or head-explosion of THE BEYOND, but the red indeed flows in
formidable amount, that and the T&A, lotsa nudity, sexual
situations, including what must be one of the only instances of a
foot-job displayed on film outside of porn. Who knows what compelled
Fulci and co. to believe that what the movie needed was a dude taking
his moccasin off and going to town on a girl under a table with his
bunion but what the hell. The movie is amusing in that way, playing
mostly on exploitation whether sexual or homicidal, now does that
work enough to make a good film? To some degree
THE GOOD
.Good gore
.Not seeing the killer on screen is
effective
THE BAD
. The soundtrack is quite
disappointing, Fulci's horror films typically have great music but
this one is really sub-par
THE FINAL CURTAIN
I was not disappointed, although I
considered it a lesser film compared to other Fulci films I still
enjoyed it, although not as much. Certainly not a bad film, actually
very decent, but not without it's faults, although any other
grievances are somewhat minor and I resist discussing them as they
would reveal too much, also they're not worth analyzing when you
stack them up against the rest of the film, which is damn good
I would deem this an adequate film,
there really isn’t much of a payoff, there is, but I’ll admit not
that much, but sometimes there doesn’t have to be, sometimes you
just want good ole meat and potatoes heavy on the sauce
PLOT
The town Oldfield has an eerie past as related through four tales of it's dark history
REVIEW
"Welcome to Oldfield...."
FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM begins with a prison execution set in the town of Oldfield, Tennessee, where we meet reporter Beth Chandler among the attendees witnessing a doomed inmate receive her final sentence. Afterwards the reporter pays a visit to town librarian and uncle to the recently deceased, Julian white, played by none other than one of our biggest legends in horror, Mr.Vincent price. As it turns out Oldfield has a rather sinister history to it, as made evident by the four macabre historic Oldfield tales he shares with the reporter:
.Stanley Burnside: Old, Silver white hair, coke bottle glasses, depraved, chock-full of perversion and a severe fixation on a girl named Grace, he eventually receives his comeuppance for taking his obsession to the extreme
.A wounded man is found and cared for by a lonely shack-living good Samaritan, who seems to display signs of immortality, the man's greed and selfish nature overtake him as he sets out to learn the secret for himself
.Carnival glass-eater Steven is at the mercy of his tyrannical boss, her voodoo incantations, and his love for one of his spectators
.Civil-war era tale of adorable cherub-faced kids and their sanguinary hijinks
In Horror cinema, A favorite sub-genre of mine is the anthology film: Trilogy of terror, Creepshow, Tales from the crypt(1972), Nightmares, Cat's eye, 3 Extremes, Twilight zone: the movie, Black sabbath, Tales from the darkside: the movie, Trick 'r treat, Two evil eyes, Body bags, (most of which will eventually receive their own reviews in the not too distant future) are great examples of how you can cram multiple stories and different concepts within one creative effort and make it work
FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM is another fine example, and serves the format quite well, the film is nothing near ambitious and at their core the stories are quite simple, but they are effective. If anything that simplicity is what I value most out of this film, it never sets out to out-gross, preach, educate, or serve any other purpose other than to tell gruesome tales, and these are quite gruesome. Much like the classic EC Comics "just desserts" most of the offenders get what they deserve in true horror fashion
THE GOOD
.There are several instances of great gore, although nothing on the creature front except for one brief but hilariously awesome exception, which to me is a highlight of the film as it initially took me by surprise, I only wish they would have ran along with that twist a lot more, it seemed notable enough that they based the film's original "official" title on it (THE OFFSPRING)
.VINCENT PRICE - While his presence is reduced to the wrap-around story it is no less what you'd expect from a horror legend, even with the simple role that he was given he dominates the film by just being Vincent fucking Price. A common footnote about this movie is Vincent Price's thoughts regarding the film, which were not favorable, calling it "terrible", it's a shame, but at the very least he was no less brilliant than before in roles past, in what turned out to be one of the last movies of his career
.The kids in the 4th story - It's always impressive to see little kids act well and especially when the job entails being villainous as well as, in this case, deal with some pretty morbid shit, they made playing "Pin the severed arm on the dead body" look natural
THE BAD
. Having only one director - This film is directed by Jeff Burr, who has overseen other Horror cuts such as LEATHERFACE: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III, PUPPETMASTER's 4&5, and the truly abysmal PUMPKINHEAD II: BLOOD WINGS. In films such as these I consider it best when multiple directors work on the individual stories, giving each tale it's own flair. I feel in this case it would have definitely improved the film, the director did the best he could but perhaps a nice solid directing team would have catapulted the movie even further
THE FINAL CURTAIN
In short, FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM is a solid entertaining horror movie, a hidden gem among the pile of bodywork from the great era of 1980's Horror cinema, certainly worth a watch, and if you enjoy necrophilia, voodoo, blood and psychopathy in your horror movies, you wont be disappointed
I created this blog to share my love for the horror genre, I will scan through the darkest pits of horror cinema and pull from a wide spectrum of choice cuts, reviewing everything from classic b&w to gore splatter-fests to foreign, monster movies, slasher, zombie, and more
I hope you enjoy my reviews, there will be many more posted periodically as well as other content, so keep an eye out-CZR
