Living Doll

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.

Infamous schlock producer Dick Randall's last film (or last released film, anyway) turns out to be a surprisingly good and grim little horror yarn.

Medical student Howard falls in love with the girl who sells flowers at the hospital where he works. She barely knows he exists. Then one day a body is brought into the morgue and Howard has to assist in the autopsy. Only too late does he realize it's the lovely Christine herself laid out on the cold slab. How this shock affects his already delicate mental balance and what he does to deal with this terrible state of affairs makes this a highly diverting outing for fans of the macabre Mark Jax is great as the disturbed Howard. He never once camps it up and plays even the most ridiculous moments straight. The SFX and make up on the mouldering corpse are excellent,. The plot takes plenty of surprising turns and the final sick twist raised a smile or two.

Great news that this will soon be out on DVD – and in an extras packed special edition.

If you like big studio, star-filled extravaganzas, then this is not for you. But if you're looking for something out of the ordinary, you'll not be disappointed.

Howard, a New York morgue attendant, falls in love with the beautiful Kristine but when she dies he digs up her corpse, takes it back it his grotty apartment and treats her as a "Living Doll". British director George Dugdale had previously made Slaughter High (1986), a film made in Britain but very poorly and unconvincingly set in the USA. He's done it again with Living Doll, there are some genuine exterior shots of New York but the majority of the movie was shot in Britain, using British actors who couldn't do an American accent if their lives depended upon it. I guess the makers were aiming for the lucrative American market but in doing so ended up with a film with terrible acting. Mark Jax, who plays Howard, is as flat as pancake, Eartha Kitt plays his landlady, one of the very few interesting characters. Glamour model Katie Orgill plays Kristine and spends much of her screen time naked. In addition to the bad acting the pace is slow and the microphone makes at least one appearance. The decomposing make up for Kristine is fairly decent. My UK VHS is cut by 13 seconds but I won't bother to upgrade to an uncut release. If you can stomach it watch Nekromantik instead!

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.