Living Doll

Sort of a disappointment here from the usually stellar Mondo Macabro, who made an excellent DVD of a movie that is just sort of OK. LIVING DOLL is an updating of the story ideas realized so vividly in the 1972 Eurohorror classic HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE with Spanish horror star Paul Naschy, amongst other sources. Man who works in morgue encounters hot babe, falls in love from afar or other position of being unable to fulfill his longings, he witnesses a cruel brutalization by someone who should be caring for her, she dies tragically & turns up as the next case on his slab the following morning. Oops.

Mark Jax plays the twenty-something slacker who takes his obsession with the gorgeous female in question too far by probing into her apartment and (apparently) hallucinates or imagines finding a note that says she suffers from a rare neurological condition which may render her inert and deathlike in appearance. So like Naschy's Gotho the Hunchie, he digs her up, takes her home and props her up on his couch with a blanket to keep her warm. Meanwhile she's really dead and the body starts to decompose while Jax imagines himself having conversations with the girl, and they start having a relationship of sorts.

Much of the film "works", including the pretend NYC environments which give the film a claustrophobic look where walls, ceilings and the trappings of life always seem to be filling in the background. Living in NYC is very compartmentalized in that one spends their day going from one box to another, riding on or in boxes shuttling one to additional boxes, and eventually you go back to your own box which is only yours because someone allows you to mess it up. I liked the Eartha Kitt landlady role, the part of the slacker buddy who gets sidelined by Jax' strange new girlfriend, and the decaying body scenes were appropriately revolting. But for me the best moment in the movie was when he gets pulled over by the cops (driving his Trans Am, yeah right?) after digging his beloved's corpse up. The policeman lets him go with a stern comment about needing to have his headlight fixed. There was abundant nudity, some nice slashes of ultra-violence, and a macabre air to the film that was at odds with the 1990's production values, which are actually rather high for such a project. This movie was very well made.

The problem is that the story never really gets involving: We watch Jax on his slow descent into madness but are never really anything more than witnesses to a bizarre obsession. HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE is over the top, energetic and frenzied in it's blasts of graphic gore, sexuality and macabre touches, some of which seem alluded to by individual moments seen in LIVING DOLL. But the lead character is so blasé, unconcerned and unable to deal with the crisis that develops that his predicament is always held at arm's length. Jax plays his role as if he were in CLERKS, and merely demented instead of the deranged psychopath that the movie calls for. The film also seems preoccupied with the need to be respectable even while being revolting, a very British trait and again at odds with what could have been a really sleazy, sensationalistic descent into the gutters of a NYC hospital morgue. Instead we get a taste of trendy slacker life in NYC ala 1991 & what really is just another weird, dysfunctional emotional entanglement between two mismatched lovers. The dead body could have been a blow-up doll and the film would have generated just as much intrigue, perhaps more.

So yeah, for once I am in total agreement with the consensus: LIVING DOLL might be an interesting rental diversion to check out but it certainly isn't one that I'll be watching again anytime soon, which is sort of the whole idea behind lower budgeted 1990's horror movies in the first place. This one was meant to be on the racks of rental shops & you'll not be doing any harm to yourself by renting it once and then having it returned there for the next victim. It is a commodity rather than a statement, and HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE deserves the same kind of restorative treatment when anyone feels like getting around to it.

5/10: "Myehh."

Living Doll, the final film to be produced by exploitation legend Dick Randall, is reminiscent of Jörg Buttgereit's infamous shocker Nekromantik (1988), only it is less grim and doesn't go so far as to feature corpse sex. That's not to say that it would make a good date movie or is something that you would want to watch with your gran: it's about a very disturbed individual and contains some fairly revolting scenes.

Mark Jax plays medical student Howard, who secretly worships hospital florist Christine (page 3 stunner Katie Orgill). When Christine turns up on the slab in the hospital morgue, having died in a car crash, the already mentally fragile Howard is pushed over the edge, digging up the young woman's corpse and taking it back to his grubby apartment, where he imagines that she is still alive, dressing her up and holding conversations with her. As the days and weeks pass, Christine starts to decompose, which causes Howard problems with his landlady Mrs. Swartz (Eartha Kitt). And then Christine asks Howard to settle the score with her boyfriend Steve (Marcel Grant), whose carelessness behind the wheel caused her death.

Although not played for laughs, there is definitely some very dark humour in the film, and the resultant uneven tone does lessen its power to shock. That said, there are several moments that are still quite uncomfortable viewing - the autopsy of Christine, the pathologist making an incision to her neck and peeling back the skin; the murder of a transvestite, with a graphic throat slashing; and Howard kissing the putrefying remains of his beloved - most of which were cut from the UK VHS release by those lovely people at the BBFC.

Overall, the film is nowhere near as powerful or memorable as Nekromantik, but if you like your horror dark and twisted, then it's definitely worth a go.

6/10.

N. B. Set in New York, but mostly filmed in London.

Ten years ago somebody told me to watch this movie. They explained to me that it consisted of a lonely man finding out that the girl he was obsessed with had died. He then decides to keep her rotting corpse at his flat. I could not wait to watch it as I assumed from that brief synopsis there was so much potential for a really interesting movie. Unfortunately all I saw was an interesting idea far from utilize it's potential. Unlike Randall's earlier movie "Slaughter High" I feel this film wanted to be more than it was but fell well short of the mark. On the upside the pure subject matter may keep you interested for the whole movie and the grossness of the decaying corpse is funny, however these are not enough to win over most fans of the horror genre and it is unlikely to win many casual viewers. So the choice is yours. Rent it, but don't expect too much.

This British production is an intriguing entry in the rather small necrophilia category of horror films. Instead of a relentless assault of slice and dice, what we get is a somewhat playful script that handles the macabre topic quite well. Both Freddie Earlle as the morgue manager, and Ertha Kitt as a nosy landlady, provide some welcome dark humor. Mark Jax plays the medical student whose infatuation with a hospital flower girl goes way beyond normal. His obsession eventually leads to stalking, grave robbing, and murder. Kate Orgill is the lifeless and slowly decomposing corpse who speaks telepathically to Mark Jax, from beyond the grave. The catchy tune "Living Doll", and general lighthearted chemistry, make "Living Doll" one of the better films of it's type. - MERK

Here's a premise for ya: A morgue attendant, who's obsessed by a beautiful girl, soon finds her on the slab after a car crash, he takes her home where he creates a fantasy world in which she is alive and co-habiting with him, eventually leading to his total mental breakdown and destruction. Sounds intriguing doesn't it? WRONG! This film is a perfect example of a fair premise let down by totally uninspired film making. Instead of an interesting character development plot, what we are presented with is a film based almost entirely on a man coming in and out of his apartment, making excuses to people, and occasionally talking to or hiding a phony corpse. But at least the performances carry it through right? WRONG! Some of the most mind numbingly poor performances by any actors I have ever seen (just check out the girls meathead boyfriend) and not even in a laughable way, just in a truly 'couldn't care less if they all died' kinda way. It says a lot when one of the stronger performances is from Eartha Kitt! If you really need to complete guy falls in love with corpse film collection then do yourself a favour and fast forward most of the middle of the film, only the mildly deranged ending is worth the entry fee. Though it does have a great closing line. File under: mild curiosity.