Director – David Silvio (Nocturnal)
Starring – Laura Romeo (Creation’s Creatures), Michael McGovern (Meat for Satan’s Icebox), and Aaron Bernard (Adventureland)
Release Date – 2012
Rating – 1/5
Tagline – “A world where macabre and deviant fantasies become reality”
Writing reviews has amazing perks. When I started writing reviews I wrote a review for the extremely low budget flickBrutal Jesus and the House of Wasted Youth. I really disliked the film and my review reflected that. Not long after that Nik Box, the director of the film, reached out to me and sent me online screeners for his other films for me to check out. From that point on I have directors reaching out to me regularly to review their films.
Recently, I befriended director David Deitz who is the owner of z-Diet-3 Productions. He let me know that he had two films available for review and I greatly accepted his offer to review them. The first on the chopping block was the David Silvio directed film Fetish Dolls Die Laughing. That title alone really intrigued me and had my imagination working overtime. Once I got the two films I had to watch this one first so thank you David for sending me the films for review!
**Spoiler Alert** The film follows a detective who is investigating a string of murders that has rocked her town. The victims are all beautiful young women. Her investigation takes her to the seedy world of bdsm and fetish models. She then starts to suspect that a fetish photographer is behind the murders. She goes undercover to get close to the perverse photographer and learns he is not who she thinks he is. He is actually possessed by an ancient being most know as the tickle monster.**Spoiler Alert**
I have seen and reviewed so many horror films over the last three years and one thing I have noticed about most of the films I have seen did not like and that is they all had amazing stories that just did not unfold very well on film. That was exactly what happened withFetish Dolls Die Laughing. The film had an amazing story that could have been one amazing and sleazy horror film. Instead, something fell apart between the script and filming.
The acting in this film is admirable but was very amateur. The entire cast gave it their all but they all have a hard time showing emotion when the scene called for it. That would have made the film a little more enjoyable instead of every character looking as if they are confused with each interaction.
The story is where this film could have been one to be remembered. Turning something so silly as the “tickle monster” into an actual being is fucking brilliant. It could have been one hell of a horror film intended for children like The Gate and Stepmonster. However, the film is poorly edited and it makes the film almost impossible to follow. In fact, it almost feels like it is two stories going simultaneously. Better editing could have went a long way in this film.
Finally, the film has no real on screen kills but it does have some beautiful women getting tortured and then tickled. If that is your thing then this film will satisfy your blood lust but if you want to watch a horror film then the lack of kills will not do. Overall, Fetish Dolls Die Laughing is a movie that could have been an amazing film aimed for children like Ernest Scared Stupid and The Monster Squad. However, it went the sexy route and with poor editing we got a film that is hard to watch.
