The Curse of Humpty Dumpty

A child caring for their parent (typically a mother) suffering from dementia has been done far better in horror before. This movie makes me think of a film like The Taking of Deborah Logan. Family conflict horror dramas are a popular subgenre right now (e.g., Hereditary), but like any trend, there are highs and lows. This is definitely a low.

I don't mind a slow burn, but there's a slow burn and then there's just tedium. And you know it's real tedium when the film finally gets to the "scary" parts and it's still tedious. The actors and the writing aren't compelling enough to draw me into liking/empathizing with this family. The only one kind of likable is the mother, and that's really because you're sympathetic to those dealing with her medical condition by default. In The Taking of Deborah Logan, the actress was very charming and good-natured and classy when she was herself, and her daughter's laid-back personality coupled with her sincere, heartbreaking concern for her mother kept you engaged in between the scares. This film did not.

This is not a scary movie by any means. Not even close. There is no tension. When the puppet transforms, it's too conventional to be scary. And it's too bland and detached to be touching/bittersweet/heart-breaking in the interim between attacks. The costume design was awful, especially for the scheming sister in law. What in the world were they thinking? I don't even think there was an actual costume designer because the clothes were clearly not tailored.

Anyway, all this movie did was make we want to watch The Taking of Deborah Logan again. If there are any positives, I would say that the puppet looks pretty good (in its normal state), and the actress playing the mom is passable (if not good enough to make what she's going through sad).

A British indie addition to the 'killer doll' wave of low budget horror, and it's absolutely awful with it. This is a gloomy and underlit production centred around a ridiculous-looking humpty dumpty doll which appears to be based on the vampire look in BLADE II. Why anyone, sane or otherwise, would choose to own such a horrific-looking doll is beyond me. The thing that annoys most is that it's just a full-size costume with a guy inside, no attempt has been made to make it look properly doll-sized. Most of the running time is padded out with a depressing story about an elderly woman sliding into dementia.

Well, from the movie's title and its cover/poster, I have to say that I wasn't exactly harboring much of any grand expectations to writer and director Scott Jeffrey's 2021 horror movie titled "The Curse of Humpty Dumpty". However, I still opted to watch it on the off-chance that it might actually be a worthwhile horror experience.

Let me just be blunt here and say that it wasn't.

The storyline in "The Curse of Humpty Dumpty", as written by Scott Jeffrey, was sort of simplistic. It wasn't that it was lazy writing or anything for the script; it was just sort of very bland and generic. Now, I will say that I thoroughly liked the dementia aspect to the storyline that Wendy Loomas (played by Nicola Wright) was suffering from, and the gradual return of warped and twisted memories as she and her daughters stayed at their family home.

I was only familiar with actress Nicola Wright on the cast list. But I will say that the actresses and actors did actually put on good enough performances, despite of the restrictions and limitations imposed by a somewhat bland script and storyline.

Visually then you're not in for a grand treat here. The doll was so painstakingly obvious just a guy wearing a costume and alternating between two blatantly obvious latex masks, given their inarticulate features.

For a horror movie then "The Curse of Humpty Dumpty" doesn't really impress. The movie just doesn't bring anything new to the genre. And it was lacking somewhat in the scare department.

My rating of "The Curse of Humpty Dumpty" lands on a very generous three out of ten stars.

So I was expecting the movie to be a B grade horror, one of those movies so stupid it's funny, but it wasn't at all.

But it was unexpectedly a decent movie.

Worth watching, the acting was good, and the story was pretty good too.

I'm almost lost for words. I've seen some bad movies in my time, especially horror ones, this could actually be the very worst. I'll give it a generous two instead of one only because admittedly I have seen worse acting but that's not saying a lot really. I'd rather watch paint dry honestly. How I badly wish I could get that 90 minutes of my life back.