Dolly the Asshole, more like.

Also, Dolly sounds like she smokes a pack of cigarettes a day. What a curse. What a knockoff of Child’s Play...

But wait... I don't think so. There's a shadow of colonialism critisism behind that tiny doll, and I have to say, this isn’t a bad horror movie. Maria Lease’s puppet theater exists in a very strange in-between space. It’s not a campy parody, it's not really funny, it’s played completely straight, a serious horror piece with a dreamlike atmosphere, especially in the interaction between the dollhouse and the family home, and in the curse the child carries throughout the film.

Lease is an interesting director because she brings a slightly different kind of dynamic…

“I’m Talky Tina! And I’m going to KILL you.” - just another doll in another doll-comes-to-life tale

After marathon-ing and ranking the entire Child’s Play series, I looked for a knock-off that I hadn’t seen before. Dolly Dearest, a little late to the party, debuted the same year (1991) as Child’s Play 3. It’s about a family of four who move to Mexico and happen to own the Dolly Dearest (akin to Good Guys) factory. The daughter takes one of these 3-foot tall dolls home. We viewers already know the doll is possessed by an evil entity because we saw it happen in the opening scene. Sound familiar?

Early on, Dolly is seen in close shots of tiny feet scampering across…

Dolly Dearest just slapped my rearest! This was some direct to video killer doll shenanigans that made me feel like l drank too much Hennigans! Move over Chucky here comes...wait for it...Dolly! A charming trash heap of cheese that hits your brain like a whiff of rotten Febreeze!

"A doll with a bad attitude..." I'LL SAY!

I was instantly pulled in from that intro. An explorer finds an ancient tomb that suddenly blasts open crushing him and unleashing an array of evil lofi lasery fx, yes I'm paying attention! Said ancient lasery demon takes over a doll and the rest is history! The most basic looking doll ever. And they name it Dolly...basic name for a basic ass doll! Pet…

“I am not losing my daughter to a God-damned, nine-hundred-year-old goat-head!”

Allegedly (according to the TV series FBI Files, season 4, episode 17), DOLLY DEAREST (1990) was the last film a young, 12-year-old Kate Romanek viewed before her abduction in 1994, as the film was mostly seen via VHS anyway. This weird nugget aside, this would-be clone of CHILD'S PLAY (1988) and its sequel, CHILD'S PLAY 2 (1990) has all the sick delights of pediophobia that producers have loved to exploit over the years in low budget horror, as a little girl's only friend is her dolly, this perverse low-budget effort was the only mainstream film directed by Maria Lease, a former exploitation actress for schlockers Lee Frost and Al…

"I am not losing my daughter to a goddamned, nine-hundred-year-old goat-head!"

Spooky Season #7

I have a stack of Vinegar Syndrome horror films practically ceiling-high, so there's no time like the present to dig into some of that bizarritude. Among those options, Dolly Dearest has been up at the top of my watchlist for at least a couple of years, notable as a Child's Play knockoff combined with a supernatural thriller about an ancient Mayan child's evil spirit. (You guessed it: all the dolls are possessed.) It's not particularly scary nor is it so poorly made as to be a trash classic, but overall I still had a fairly fun time!

Mostly I appreciate evaluating the film in the context…

"I am not losing my daughter to a God-damned, nine-hundred-year-old goat-head!"

Elliot Wade scores big time with his recent acquisition of the "Dolly Dearest" doll factory in Mexico. No no, not the new one. The old one. So, the Wade family pull up stumps, jump La Migra and head on south, mi amigo! Just a stone's throw from the factory is this newly discovered underground Mayan tomb of Sanzia, or Satan on Earth. I know, rite, what I wouldn't give to score me a creepy ass Mexican doll factory next door to the grave of Satan on Earth. I mean, how super cool is that?

Anyway, this archaeologist breaks into the sarcophagus, gets his ass crushed by the stone slab…

A title you've come to expect for a restoration treatment by Blu-ray label Vinegar Syndrome. As always, never looked/ sounded any better.

Much better than I expected obviously capitalizing on the success of "Child's Play (1988)" but manages to sneak in elements from "The Omen (1976)" (the rottweiler chase on a graveyard and a little girl freaking when a priest is blessing the house).

Directed by female porn director Maria Lease, who did the "Little Girls Blue" films, and starring "Pet Sematary" mom Denise Crosby as yet another mommy worried shitless for her kids.

It featured an unusual setting for a possessed doll feature as it's in Mexico where the family's dad bought a rundown toy doll "factory" which happened…