Playing with Dolls

An attractive young girl down on her luck is saved from skid row by one of those offers that validate the saying if it looks too good to be true, it is. Certainly most of the time, and absolutely certainly in this case. She is lured out into the middle of nowheresville to housesit and apparently to await the arrival of an elderly man to whom she will presumably act nanny. Except that other people turn up first, including our mystery psychopathic killer, a reincarnation of Leatherface, Michael Myers, or somewhere in between.

Needless to say, she is not the first intended victim, at least two girls have been despatched before she arrives, one of them graphically. The psycho in the mask is not the only sicko on the loose, he has actually been brought in to provide the entertainment for the real villain, the type who never gets his own hands dirty.

What more do you need to know? Well, the year before this was released, our damsel Natasha Blasick gave an interview in which she claimed to have had sex with a ghost. This one is not so much supernatural sex as necrophilia; its one saving grace is a superior soundtrack, one which deserved to be married to a film worth watching.

No budget, sense or originality. This is just another run-of-the-mill DTV bottomfeeder, that has as much to do with Halloween and Friday the 13th as a mocha smoothiea has with violent diarrhea. The hack Rene Perez acted as Director, Editor, Cinematographer, Writer, Composer and Producer on this pathetic nonsensical skidmark, all to horrendously incompetent effect. Just ignore it, nothing to see here.

This is bad in every way. Scooby Doo had more terror and suspense and even when you knew what the ending of Scooby and the game that ending is still better than this. But with as bad as the slasher part was it was not as bad as the tiny cop. We are supposed to believe he chases this serial killer around the globe by himself while wearing his Toys R Us uniform. None of the characters were at all believable as people so they had no shot at making believable characters. The whole thing was like the writer had never seen a horror movie or a cop movie he just had someone explain the concept of them with no details about character development. I wish I could still like movies like this and envy those who do, it would make wasting 2 hours less painful.

This movie right here is without a doubt one of the weakest I have ever seen, and I've seen many!! Believe me when I tell you this: nothing happens!!

OK, read carefully and don't you dare to double check me cause that will mean watching it for yourself, so please, please let me do you this one favor and steer you in another direction. At first I couldn't believe how many shots were pretty much for nothing, just to fill some time, but as the movie progressed I discovered that it actually has almost nothing to show. Two kills, not all made by the killer, close to no plot, no gore, little nudity, a good killer mask and a laughable soundtrack. The killer has almost no action whatsoever, which is quite amazing for a horror, the main actor is shown the entire movie, as she eats, dances, sleeps and so on and then when the ending comes, it just comes. A few "action" scenes and the end!

Playing with dolls should be named Playing with your nerves! Don't do it. Very weak production!

Cheers!

Another film with the gear and the cast but an under-developed script. The opening drops us into a lot of action but never explains what's going on; you must infer from what you're shown. The lead baddie at his computer monitor is never explained either. What are his goals? Who frees serial killers in order to watch them at work? You must make motivations clear to the audience. The young heroine needs money - but what is everyone else up to, and why? The first hour (!) is heavily padded with superfluous goings-on. A few jump scares don't make up for a lack of real tension either. This was a near miss - a sharper focus on its goals, with fewer shots of the killer in full daylight, and this could have been an effective little thriller. Here's hoping the follow-ups are better vetted. Worth watching for the extremely pretty Natasha Blasick, the nifty (but unexplained) mask on the killer, and - well, not much else.