Stuart Gordon – Tripping Through Gateways

Charles Band really loves his little monsters. Sometimes you get Skull Heads. But other times? You get Dolls.

Young Judy is on a road trip with her father and step-mother. Neither seem to thrilled to have young Judy along and they constantly belittle her for…well being a kid. After their car breaks down, a sudden storm forces them to seek shelter. They come across a remote house occupied by an elderly couple. The storm also brings in two young punk chicks and a driver who had offered them a ride. He is a bit of a doofus to all the adults, and the girls accuse him of being a sex creep.

The couple give everyone a place to sleep that night, and that is when it all gets strange for them. Each room is packed full of dolls. Now, Judy is thrilled when the old man offers her a doll for the night to take the place of her lost teddy bear. But the adults show the dolls no respect. And that leads to mayhem.

Playing off a certain creepiness of the uncanny valley with dolls, director Stuart Gordon effectively plays the story out making the most of the creepy ambience of the setting. Ed Naha has written a story that manages to be both fun and creepy. The old couple are doll makers with a dark secret, while the supposes sex creep turns out to be a decent guy (which is definitely to his benefit as they try and survive the night). But the reveal of the truth behind the toy makers doll is good old creepy fun. It also leads to a darkly happy ending.

Dolls is a great little 80’s supernatural horror film and worth a watch.

The horror anthology format is one that can yield tremendous success (Trick’r Treat, Creepshow) or terrible results (Creepshow 3, V/H/S 3). It has a somewhat spotty history, but the tradition holds strong. Probably the most ambitious, but not entirely successful were the two ABC’s of Death films, which each contained 26 short films. Tales of Halloween keeps it to ten stories, which is probably the limit for getting a good yield of stories.

The film uses the framing device of a small town where every Halloween the dead walk, ghouls play and monsters eat. Guiding us through the tales is (in a pretty obvious homage to her role in the fog) radio host Adrienne Barbeau (Creepshow, Swamp Thing).

The stories are hit or miss, with an uneven tone, but when they hit? They are terrific fun. Standouts include The Night Billy Raised Hell, the Ransom of Rusty Rex, Bad Seed, and Friday the 31st. What makes all those stories work is their sense of humor. All are having more fun than trying to be scary.

This Means War starts out strong, but ends kind of weakly.

Friday the 31st starts out like a slasher story, complete with an obvious Jason type…but then takes a complete left turn. The Ransom of Rusty Rex tells a tale of ambitious kidnappers who grab a rich man’s (John Landis, director of American Werewolf in London) son while he is trick or treating. Except, the boy is a bit more of a hellion than anticipated.

On the other hand, Sweet Tooth goes more for the traditional monster/urban legend territory…and it ends exactly like you expect it to. The Weak and the Wicked lacks any real life in it’s narrative, and for being a short, fails to do much in it’s premise of revenge.

In the end, I found the film an enjoyable watch, with some good humor, fun cameos and even a few scares. It is not quite Trick’r Treat, but it is some good Halloween fun.

Tag: Stuart Gordon

As Little Children (Dolls, 1987)

Many Tales To Tell (Tales of Halloween, 2015)