Awfully Good: Dolly Dearest + Dracula vs. Frankenstein (Video)

Before there was ANNABELLE, there was…Chucky. Then some other killer doll movies. But after that there was totally…

Dolly Dearest (1991)

Director: Maria Lease
Stars: Denise Crosby, Rip Torn, Sam Bottoms

A family moves to Mexico to open a toy factory next to a recently unearthed satanic tomb. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

DOLLY DEAREST was a minor straight-to-video horror flick at best. I remember watching it late one night on TV hoping for an entertaining CHILD'S PLAY ripoff. What I got was so much more/less—easily one of the laziest horror films ever created. It didn't bother with things like story or characters or the basic principles of filmmaking. And what little of those elements were present made zero sense.

Dolly does her "Katie Holmes trying to emote" impression.

I honestly can't tell if DOLLY DEAREST actually has a sense of humor about itself, or if it's really just that terrible. The title character continually laughs and talks in a hilariously lame voice. (I did a spit take the first time she said "Jessie, come play with me!") When we first meet the older brother, he's actually reading a book titled "Why Bad Things Happen to Good Kids." And at one point the housekeeper takes the time to discuss the virtues of using turkey manure to grow vegetables. That's right; there's actually real, serious dialogue in the movie about bird shit. Sadly, this is writer/director Maria Lease's only filmmaker credit aside from a few softcore flicks, so it's hard to tell her sensibilities as a director. Suffice to say I was laughing wholeheartedly throughout whether it was intentional or not.

Because it's funny.

The whole thing starts when father-of-two Elliot Wade decides to uproot his family and move everyone to Mexico so he can realize his dream of getting rich making dolls for little girls. Unfortunately, his new factory happens to be right next door to some Mayan ruins where Satanists trapped the spirit of a goat-headed devil child. Even more unfortunately, some archaeologists have just recently ignored all dire warnings and opened the tomb, letting the poorly-rendered demon ghost escape. And super mega unfortunately, the evil spirit enters the body of the one of the dolls exactly when Mr. Wade's young daughter Jessica comes to visit and take it home. Talk about bad timing…

In the sequel, the dolls are possessed by the spirit of Gene Simmons from KISS.

Apparently the Wade family is pretty dysfunctional, because nobody seems to notice that Jessica starts spending 24/7 with the doll and acting like the kid from THE OMEN. She throws tantrums at priests and attacks random Mexicans. She even begins speaking in an ancient Mayan language and still everyone ignores her behavior. (In fact, the mom actually goes out of her way to tell the terrified maid to stop praying for her daughter's soul.) Eventually Dolly kills the housekeeper by stabbing her and electrocuting her in a bathtub full of water that happens to be sitting in the basement—and still nobody cares! The family literally finds the murdered maid and sees Jessica standing outside in a violent storm glaring evilly at the house and there is no follow-up scene dealing with the consequences. No cops, no worried discussion between the adults. Everyone just continues on with their lives in the next scene.

If I had a time machine, I would use it to go back to this exact moment and tell Rip Torn that he would one day be covered in elephant semen in a Tom Green film.

At some point, the mom (played by Denise Crosby of PET SEMATARY and Star Trek: The Next Generation fame) finally realizes it's not jet lag causing her daughter to channel Satan and consults the expertise of archaeologist Rip Torn. The FREDDY GOT FINGERED and BALLOON FARM star is in fine form as the world's dumbest scholar—a man who spent years studying every intricacy of the fabled demon child but refuses to believe the little girl is possessed by the exact same symptoms. ("She's speaking an extinct satanic language and is threatening to murder us all? Coincidence!") Torn gets to deliver dialogue that ranges from cheesy ("It is the story of the birth of eeeeeevil.") to downright bizarre ("I see your beauty in your son's face."). And he does so with a vaguely Hispanic accent that comes and goes more often than his dignity.

Jimmie "J.J." Walker always knew how he would leave this earth.

The killer doll effects shockingly aren't terrible, but the way the film stages its slasher scenes is laughable. At the end of the day, Dolly is just a small, easily handled toy, so when she continually pops out and attacks people, the results are unconvincing at best. (At one point she stabs the dad with a small pair of scissors and he simply pulls it out and nonchalantly says "Bastards!" and walks away.) The script also builds up all this mythology about the supernatural title character and the satanic group that harnessed her powers—only to completely forget about it by the end. Instead of messing with the tomb or using some religious ritual to deal with Dolly, Jessica's brother simply shoots her with a shotgun and apparently that does the trick. Then the dad blows up the factory and all the dolls with dynamite, before proclaiming "It's over now."

Because clearly the devil's only weakness is fire.

"I'm not losing my daughter to a goddamn 900-year old goat head!" and other winners from Rip Torn and Dolly herself.

Some of Dolly's most hilarious kills (or attempted kills).

Nada.

Annabelle who? Buy this movie here!

Take a shot or drink every time:

Someone says "Sanzia"
The little girl is rude to the help
Dolly asks Jessie to play with her
Dolly pops out of nowhere
The music (by X-FILES composer Mark Snow) is unnecessarily overdramtic

Double shot when there's a:

Cat fakeout!

BUT WAIT! We're kicking off our Awfully Good Movies: October Monster Mash this month and today we start with AWFULLY GOOD MOVIES: DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN! Check it out below!