Island of the Dolls

The movie starts out by claiming that it is based on a true story...

Right, well the 2023 horror movie "Island of the Dolls" is a movie that snuck in under my radar. When I stumbled upon it by random chance here in 2024, I had never even heard about it. But I was initially lured in by the movie's cover. And with it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to sit down and watch it.

Writer Oscar Wenman-Hyde delivered a script that was as bland as a day at work is long. Talk about a sluggish narrative. And the fact that there was nothing interesting happening just made the ordeal all the more insufferable.

Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie. And while that is usually something I do enjoy when I sit down to watch a movie, I have to say that the actors and actresses on the cast list in "Island of the Dolls" virtually had nothing to work with in terms of script, dialogue or characters. And it reflected poorly on their performances.

The character gallery in the movie was every bit as bland as the storyline itself. So at least they went hand-in-hand. But it didn't do anything to lift up the movie having such an indistinct and forgettable character gallery milling about on the screen like drones.

If you enjoy horror movies, like I do, then do yourself a favor and give this attempt at a horror movie a wide berth. It just simply isn't worth the 78 minutes that it runs for. Some of us suffered through this ordeal, so you don't have to. You're very welcome.

The movie has a great cover, and that is about all that there was to the movie, sadly so. Yeah, the movie's cover was actually the best thing about this ordeal, and it oversold the movie by miles.

My rating of director Jack E. Bell's 2023 movie "Island of the Dolls" lands on a two out of ten stars.

I don't know why this movie has an average to higher rating. Oh, wait, I do, fake reviews. Don't be suckered by any saying anything positive about this badly put-together snore-fest.

The plot is loosely based on that island filled with Dolls in Mexico somewhere. This, however, is not set there. It's in a place they could afford in some woods they cant even do a good enough job to make it seem like an island. Some guy decided to place Dolls everywhere on the island, for no apparent reason, after leaving his family for no apparent reason till one day a little girl with no identity for no apparent reason is found dead for no apparent reason and the guy buries her instead of notifying authorities for no apparent reason and her ghost doesn't like that the guy gave one of her Dolls to another little girl and that other little girl hears the ghost girl calling her back to return her doll 20 years later and then her and her boyfriend go to the island where her story comes out, that he knew nothing about, for no apparent reason and they go along with a brother and sister and also meet another couple out of nowhere played by people with no chemistry, no charisma, no acting ability and no other reason to be in the film other than to be predictable victims. Then a stupid ending and a boring done-to-death outcome.

Don't bother watching this. It's not worth even just a single view. Its editing is bad, jumping from thing to thing with no explanation or setup in between. It tries to force character history but fails to provide anything of interest. Its atmosphere is not creepy at all. For an island full of 20 year old Dolls, they wouldn't look so new and clean, killing off any chance of making anything look plausible. Did I mention the characters are absolutely boring?

Avoid it. There's not one thing worth seeing in this low-budget garbage. Not even a laughable kill scene.

Heading to a remote island, a group of strangers looking to uncover the truth about the area's haunted past find that the stories about it being littered with broken dolls are true when they spot the mysterious objects there which gives them the chance to encounter the spectral owner of the dolls.

Overall, this was a disappointing if still watchable genre effort. One of the better elements present here is the rather solid atmosphere generated by being at this particular location, which offers the concept at play. Giving off a rather strong backstory about the gruesome history of the island being a location of a tragic death of a young girl and the dolls being placed there to quell her vengeful spirit only to find it never worked and her spirit now haunts the island, this works well enough to set up a location involving plenty of tragic accidents that prove it perfect for a ghostly spirit to roam. With that, it gives an explanation for the imagery to run rampant, with the logical explanation given for why the area is home to thousands of dolls, as that's a genuinely creepy and unnerving concept, which has quite a lot to like about it. The idea of the ghostly spirit coming to life and stalking others with the ghostly voices in the distance and the potential of the dolls coming to life to kill others, which looks well enough for what it is, gives this some admittedly creepy scenes. Beyond this, though, there's not much going on here. That's mainly due to the utterly dull and glacial pacing that doesn't have much to do for such long periods, and it's possible to drift off before the action happens. There's long stretches with the couples going around talking about being together, who's being cheating on who, or whether the island's history is coming to pass or not, giving this one of the blandest bits of character development in between such few attacks that it's a struggle to get through anything here. The characters delivering this are just plain insufferably dull, doing all of this with very little of anything happening to be of interest when it's not involving the creepy dolls or the ghost girl running around. Given that it's all draped in a cheap, ultra flimsy production that is never convincing as an island, looks like it was filmed quickly to boot, and was devoid of extravagant kills on top of everything, it all makes for a weak and underwhelming feature.

Rated Unrated/R: Language and Violence.

How a "horror" movie can have such a short runtime but be so complete void of anything interesting is somewhat remarkable. Unfortunately Im on a losing streak tonight and this is the third barely watchable stinker in a row. Avoid. The only thing that could have made this one worse is the shaky cam nonsense, but that's not enough to give such a vapid experience any points. At about the 54 minute mark, there is a treacherous scene where 2 people accidentally stab each other to death. The absurdity of the scene in question in all its amazing glory caused me to go ahead and award +1 star, but think of it more as a razzie.