Black Devil Doll from Hell

Having just endured director Chester Novell Turner's horror 'anthology' Tales From The Quadead Zone, I thought I would see if his earlier film, Black Devil Doll From Hell, was any better. As it happens, it's just as inept, with almost seven minutes of opening credits, equally terrible acting, cheap special effects and the same atrocious Casio organ music, but it does manage to be marginally more entertaining thanks to its incredibly silly plot which results in the one-of-a-kind sight of a ventriloquist dummy having sex with a woman (well, one-of-a-kind until Black Devil Doll, a 2007 'homage' to this film).

The lady who receives wood from the doll is devout Christian Helen (played by Shirley L. Jones), who purchases the dummy from a thrift store, despite being warned that it has strange powers and always finds its way back to the shop. Unpacking her new purchase and placing it on a chair in her bathroom, Helen decides to take a shower, unaware that the doll is watching. While she soaps up her jugs, Helen daydreams about making it with the dummy. The woman's fantasies become reality when the doll jumps on her back, ties her to her bed, and has sex with her, making her beg for him to continue.

Waking up the next day to find the doll gone, Helen is distraught: having experienced mind-blowing sex, she wants more. Now a sinner, she ditches her religious paraphernalia, puts on some lipstick and her biggest pair of glasses, and goes looking for a man to satisfy her the way the doll did. No one can (not even Will Smith in a hat), so she returns to the shop, where the doll is waiting. Buying the dummy for a second time, she takes it home and demands more action. Nothing happens, so she threatens to destroy it, a mistake that costs her dearly.

Black Devil Doll From Hell is, as you've probably figured out, utter garbage, but bonkers enough to appeal to fans of z-grade cult oddities: the dummy (part Rick James, part Stevie Wonder, with just a dash of Whoopi Goldberg) is hilarious, especially when it gets up and walks (clearly a child in similar clothing), or when it shouts at Helen, "How do you like that, *****?". Watching the doll as it licks Helen's breasts, goes down on her, or gets nasty is a truly bizarre experience. And what the hell is up with that smoke it belches in her face? She might not be much of an actress, but I take my hat off to Jones just for being game.

2/10. It's bad... but don't let that stop you from watching.

The plot of "Black Devil Doll from Hell" is fairly simple:a foul-mouthed ventriloquist dummy terrorizes a defenseless religious zealot.Helen Black,a prim and deeply religious woman,buys a strange doll in a curio shop.The shop's owner tells her that the doll has been purchased four different times,and each time it has found its way back to the shop.Soon the Helen is thrown into a nightmare as the doll begins to terrorize her...Wow,this piece of blacksploitation sleaze is completely abysmal.The acting is horrible,the score is incredibly awful and there is no gore.The special effects are some of the worst I have ever seen.Still the lengthy sex scene between Helen and a doll is hilarious.That sequence,with the puppet(obviously controlled by a guy shaking it off-screen)humping this plump but ecstatic Bible-thumper had me laughing so hard I was crying.The action drags tremendously,with most scenes going on for way too long and others being totally unnecessary.Overall,a must-see for fans of trash cinema.

Brilliantly sincerely evil and naive. It could be compared to John Waters work in it's disregard for societal racial, drug and sexual taboos even tho I think they were going more for a PUPPET MASTER vibe. The plot is less convoluted than that of PUPPET MASTER (nice lady goes to open air market, buys cute rasta dummy/puppet, takes it home, puppet raises hell, smokes pot, is mean and gives her oral sex.) This movie is worth seeing - if you can find it. The soundtrack is Phillip Glass minimal and the sex scenes with the puppet are shockingly bad/funny. Beyond so bad it's good, so crinchingly terrible it's wonderful. Laugh your way through scenes never intended to be funny while you groove to the fumbled 2 finger synth sound track.

I used to always pass this box at the video store and, after over a year, I decided to rent it. I can't remember when I laughed so damned hard in my life! There are some legitimate comedies that haven't tickled me this much, definitely a "So-Bad-It's-Good" classic. The story concerns one Shirley Black (Shirley L. Jones), a deeply religious woman who stops at a thrift shop and buys a doll that looks a lot like Webster with French braids. The woman running the store tells Shirley that the doll was the property of an East Indian gentleman with strange powers (although the doll has a West Indian hairstyle, but, never mind) and that it always returns to the store under its own power. Hearing that should put anyone off of purchasing the doll, but not our intrepid and spiritual Shirley (so brave and righteous is she that she preaches to men trying to sell her stolen merchandise on the street). She buys it and even tells it "You'll be the only man to see me naked other than my husband" before taking a shower. She then has visions of being attacked by the doll.

Once again, anyone else would be getting rid of the doll at this point. But Shirley hangs on to it. The next day, it jumps out of a closet and knocks her unconscious. It then ties her to the bed and has its way with her before running back to the thrift shop. Shirley is then sent into a downward spiral of sexual degradation as she looks for the thrill that her "little woodenheaded b*****d" has given her with mere mortal men. Let's face it, once you've gotten it on with a doll that looks like a cross between "Lester" of Willie Tyler & Lester fame and Stevie Wonder on the HOTTER THAN JULY album cover, well, no flesh and blood piece will do (Meshach Taylor's line from MANNEQUIN comes to mind: "I would never interrupt you while you were getting a piece of wood."). Other people I know who have seen BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL have also had the same reaction: Utter hilarity! Especially at the Mr. T-sounding voice of the doll ("B----, b----, I said wake up, b----!").

If you're looking for a coherent, competent piece of cinema, you'll be disappointed by THE BLACK DEVIL DOLL. But if you're looking for something in the PLAN 9/ROBOT MONSTER ouevre, by all means, check THIS out. By the way, LOVE that cheesy organ music.

Unbelievable obscurity from the mid-80s revels in its pornographic and horror inspirations. A church-going lady saving herself for marriage goes shopping at a thrift store and picks up a Jamaican puppet believed to have evil powers. It then proceeds to rape the living bejeezus out of her and turns her into a horn dog, only human meat cannot satiate her newfound hunger for puppet penis. Absurd on every level with pacing that can block a magnum bullet, this has garnered a cult status for all the right reasons. Only a few freeze frame montages show any creativity and deliver the biggest belly laughs, unless you count the disco scene from 1984 with numerous extras shaking their booties to Casio music. Which is the film's other main asset: score. The opening credits droll for a full 6.5 minutes with an accompanying song you'd swear was performed and vocalized by Aaron Stielstra; the rest of the songs coming from a Casio keyboard demonstration (literally) and an unbearable one-note synth drone that sounds like your tape is broken. Remarkably, the puppetry is very competent and I couldn't spot any humans manipulating the Fat Albert-voiced doll. Many, many scenes of erotica and nudity from one of the most unattractive women to grace the screen. The thrift store owner's line reading is hilarious and deserves its own drinking game.