Major thanks to Daniel Murphy for letting me have an advanced screener to review!
Night of the Dolls is written by Tom Komisar and directed by Daniel Murphy. Cast members include Emily Rhoads, Cassie “Boom” Guthrie, Linda Schrader, Bryer Sage, R. J. Cecott, Eric Raume, and Dustin Lawson (“The Devil”); and featured appearances from Nurse Hatchet (“The Chainsaw Sally Show,” Psychotic State), Rayna Long (“Hotel Home”), and Ellie Church (Time To Kill).
“It’s been 20 years since the Sheriff’s Department made the gruesome discovery in the basement of the Brookhurst Sanitarium. Unspeakable crimes of freakish experiments performed on female patients at the hands of the sick and demented monster, Dr. Graves. Kari, the lead singer of the all girl punk band The Lolita Dolls has been obsessed with the story about his victims since childhood. After receiving a mysterious e-mail, Kari befriends a ‘Fan’ online who invites the band to the sanitarium to film a video for a song off of their new CD, Fallen Angels. With the help of a van and their friends Lenny and Steve, the girls set out on a punk rock road trip of a lifetime, only to discover that the legacy of terror hidden behind the walls of the Brookhurst Sanitarium is far from over.”
If I’m going to be honest (which is the only way I know how to be), I had some reservations going into my viewing of Night of the Dolls. It’s no surprise that we support all horror films here at HorrorSociety.com no matter what the budget is. It’s what we do, and we love it, but sometimes that means we review movies that are lacking in some areas. Based on the clips and other promotional media I’ve seen from this particular title, I was a little worried. It looked kind of amateur, maybe a little b-movie quality and not in the good way. However… The only reason I’m telling you this is because I don’t want you to be fooled! Night of the Dolls is actually professionally done and of much higher quality than its representation. It’s a pretty good independent feature by a team of crew members who really know what they’re doing. Don’t believe what you see on Facebook and YouTube. You need to see this movie for yourself. It certainly deserves a chance!
Oh, and while the whole cast pull off above average performances, Emily Rhoads is amazing as the lead Lolita Doll Kari. You should see this movie for her performance and I hope that she does another horror film soon.
The two biggest positives this movie contains are: special effects and music. Alex Burns and Harry McCane deserve some praise for their work in Night of the Dolls. From the opening sequence – featuring a brutal torture scene with tongue gouges and everything – to someone’s face being put in some sort of meat grinder to other bloody scenes, the special effects were very cool looking and more importantly they were realistic looking. The music, with a soundtrack recorded by a plethora of people that I can’t mention right now individually, is fitting for the theme of the movie. And, in hindsight, all the singers and musicians who created the tracks are talented. I couldn’t help but be drawn into a slower, sadder song that was played while one of the main characters was being sliced up while another hostage watches. Most movies would have a very intense, loud score playing throughout the scene, but Night of the Dolls using a more acoustic sounding track was genius. Again, the special effects and the music were the best part of this movie.
Here’s what I did not like about the movie. One of the characters, sorry Lenny, should have been killed off in the first five minutes so the audience wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore. The twist reveal ending is a little unclear, or at least it was to me. Maybe you’ll pick it up quicker. Lastly, the fight scenes were cringe worthy. Slow, no-powerful blows just flying all over the place. Night of the Dolls would have really benefited from one day set aside just for stunt choreography.
I’m going to give Night of the Dolls a 6.5 out of 10. A good independent horror feature, but missing that little extra oomph.
