For horror fans who were teenagers during the VHS genre-film boom of the 1980s, the new Shudder release, Dolly, will be a fun throwback. Director Rob Blackhurst (co-scripting with Brandon Weavil) isn’t out to reinvent the wheel. This bare-bones creeper pays homage to directors such as Tobe Hooper and early Wes Craven.
Dolly Movie Review
Visually, Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Craven’s Last House on the Left are the most obvious influences, as well as the many straight-to-video, hidden gem, slasher flicks that lined the shelves of local video stores and played in the Grindhouse theaters of the day. Justin Derry’s grainy 16mm camerawork gives Dolly an old school grime that enhances the
filmmaker’s desired creepiness. The picture feels unclean; an aura that will hold the audience in an uneasy trance. Blackhurst knows what made the low budget horrors of the 80s so endearing to genre fans and creates a properly entertaining retro vibe to tell his story.
Macy (Fabianne Therese) and her boyfriend, Chase (Sean William Scott), head to the mountains for a hike in the woods. Chase wants to use the romantic getaway and its seclusion to propose to Macy. Everything seems to be working out, until the happy couple comes across an area where a bunch of seriously creepy dolls are nailed to trees and arranged purposefully on the surrounding grounds. From this moment, here endeth their blissful getaway. Enter the titular slasher, a hulking figure dressed in a blood-stained red dress and dragging a shovel. Dolly’s face is covered by a porcelain doll mask that is as cracked and weathered as the killer’s psyche. The character is played by professional wrestler Max the Impaler, who uses their bulk to good effect. Dolly’s design is certainly created in the style of Gunnar Hansen’s Leatherface, but Max creates something memorable out of their portrayal. Dolly’s strange whines and grunts, along with the brute strength and the pure strangeness of their appearance is quite unnerving.
Chase is the first to be attacked, as Dolly chokes him out and drives the shovel through his leg. This doesn’t kill him, so Dolly takes out their victim’s bottom jaw with the shovel’s edge. Why Chase doesn’t run after being choked and thrown to the ground is a flaw in the script, but director Blackhurst makes up for it by giving gore fans an exciting almost-kill. Since the explosion of CGI, practical FX took a hit, but films such as this one (along with the Terrifier series and 2025’s undervalued arthouse slasher, In a Violent Nature) are resurrecting the artistry of handcrafted gore designs. Chance’s attack and a moment when Dolly punches through a character’s chest and peeks through it, are bloodletting highlights.
Macy finds herself knocked unconscious. When she awakes, she is in a rundown house and wearing little girl’s clothing while sitting in a child-sized crib. It becomes clear that Macy is meant to be Dolly’s new daughter. The fate of the first daughter is revealed later with the introduction of another character, played by Ethan Suplee. The actor fully commits to the bizarre tone, but Suplee’s screen time is brief and his character is too undercooked to leave an impression. The following scenes are gleefully perverse, as Macy is subjected to such degradations as wearing a diaper and sucking on a pacifier. Dolly bottle-feeds Macy, but she can’t stomach whatever is inside. Frustrated, Dolly tries forcefully breastfeeding her captive until Macy resists, taking the “rebellious child” to a whole new (and bloody) level. To the uninitiated, these moments will be a turn-off. To horror movie aficionados well-versed in the grimy slashers of yesteryear (or the modern films of Rob Zombie), the macabre essence of this segment will be a good time. No one goes into any slasher picture expecting deep characterizations and social relevance. The filmmakers know what is expected of them and they work hard to give the people what they want.
Verdict
There isn’t a lot to Dolly. The two leads are attacked and Macy fights her way to a hopeful survival. Blackhurst and Weavil’s screenplay doesn’t explain Dolly’s backstory or why this creature is the way it is. There is a quick set up followed by a no-frills retro horror movie, and that is just fine. A good deal of today’s horror films are designed to reflect current social structures or political climates. In fairness, some of the genre’s greatest films hold up a mirror to their times. Don Seigel’s 1956 classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, George A. Romero’s 1968 zombie masterpieces Night of the Living Dead and 1978’s Dawn of the Dead, and the 1988 John Carpenter classic They Live, are all shining examples of filmmakers using horror to comment on their times.
Today, the creatively stimulating works of Jordan Peele and Ari Aster inject their genre films with deeper subtexts. This type of moviemaking has a most welcome place, but sometimes horror lovers just want to grab a bucket of popcorn, a big soda, and settle in for an emotionless killer laying bloody waste to its victims. The entertainingly twisted Dolly is that kind of movie.
Dolly is in theaters now. It is rated R for strong violence, gore, grisly images, language and some nudity with a runtime of 1 hour 22 minutes.
Reviewer: Anthony Francis. He is the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of The Movie Revue. You can find his reviews, interviews, and other works at TheMovieRevue.com, as well as on Instagram and Facebook.
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