Living Doll (1990)

Directors:

George Dugdale
Peter Mackenzie Litten

Writers:

George Dugdale (screenplay)
Mark Ezra (screenplay)
(more)

Release Date:

26 July 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Horror

Plot:

Howard, a shy morgue worker, falls in love with a girl who ends up in the morgue, but he doesn't let that stop him.

Plot Keywords:

Morgue | Murder | Insanity | Necrophilia | Medical Student

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Mark Jax	...	Howard
Katie Orgill	...	Christine / Dead Christine
Gary Martin	...	Jess
Freddie Earlle	...	Ed
Marcel Grant	...	Steve
Eartha Kitt	...	Mrs. Swartz
Alison Jenkins	...	Girl in Bar
Heather Robbins	...	Transvestite
Sean Aita	...	Night Shift Worker
David Taylor	...	Priest
Tanya Lee	...	Nurse Lorraine
Ted Maynard	...	Pathologist
Jane Rawlins	...	Pearl
Mandy Curzon	...	1st Girlfriend
Alanna Lane	...	2nd Girlfriend
Nicola Turner	...	Dead Christine

Directed by
George Dugdale
Peter Mackenzie Litten		(as Peter Litten)

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
George Dugdale		screenplay
Mark Ezra		screenplay
Paul Hart-Wilden		story

Produced by
Frank Green	....	executive producer
Mark Pollard	....	associate producer
Dick Randall	....	producer

Cinematography by
Colin Munn		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Jim Connock

Production Design by
David Rogers

Makeup Department
Vesna Gregori	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Kevan Van Thompson	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Frank Cybulski	....	second assistant director
Paul Hart-Wilden	....	third assistant director
Douglas MacDonald	....	first assistant director

Art Department
Terry Allen	....	props master
John Daws	....	stand-by carpenter
Andy Evans	....	construction manager
Ben Miller	....	changehand props
Ron Richards	....	stand-by painter
Paul Woods	....	props buyer

Sound Department
Michael Adelman	....	sound mixer
Henry Dobson	....	dubbing mixer
Chris Gurney	....	boom operator
Enrico Ranzoni	....	sound assistant

Special Effects by
Paul Catling	....	special effects makeup designer
Dave Elsey	....	special effects makeup (as David Elsey)
Sue Higgins	....	foam supervisor
John Humphreys	....	sculptor
Gerry Johnston	....	special effects supervisor
William Petty	....	special effects technician
Jon Tucker-Bull	....	special effects technician (as Jonathan Tucker-Bul)

Camera and Electrical Department
Chris Bairstow	....	camera loader
Chris Bairstow	....	clapper loader
Gordon Cartwright	....	still photographer
Mark Clark	....	best boy
Andy Edridge	....	grip
Terry Lewis	....	gaffer
Paul Munn	....	camera operator
Tony Shearn	....	focus puller
John Ward	....	Steadicam operator

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Lee Scott	....	costumes
Alexandra Turner	....	wardrobe assistant

Editorial Department
Tony Bray	....	assistant editor
June McDonagh	....	assistant editor

Other crew
Felice Arden	....	unit coordinator: New York
Chris Arkell	....	production accountant
Anita Belli	....	script supervisor
Stefan Benarroch	....	location manager
Tara Butler	....	assistant to producer
Bob Christie	....	unit publicist
Kate Easteal	....	assistant to directors
Gordon Glass	....	accounts secretary
Peter Jacobs	....	production liaison
Corliss Randall	....	production associate
Richard Weaver	....	production associate

Production Companies

• Spectacular Film Productions

Distributors

• Mondo Macabro (2005) (USA) (DVD)
• MGM Home Entertainment (Europe) (????) (UK) (VHS)
• MGM/UA Entertainment Company (????) (USA) (VHS)

Special Effects

• Cost to Cost Production Ltd. (special effects facilities)

Other Companies

• AGFA  film stock
• De Wolfe Music  incidental music (as De Wolfe Ltd.)
• Mercury Sound Studios  post-production facilities (as Mercury Studio Sound)
• Metro Color London  titles (as Meterocolor London Ltd.)
• Smith & Jones Catering  catering (as Smith & Jones)
• Space Electrical Lighting Ltd.  lighting equipment
• Technovision  camera equipment

Runtime:

92 min | USA:95 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:18

Filming Locations:

London, England, UK

Company:

Spectacular Film Productions

Soundtrack:

Living Doll

Myehh -- Hunchback of the Morgue, Manhattan Style

Sort of a disappointment here from the usually stellar Mondo Macabro, who made an excellent DVD of a movie that is just sort of OK. LIVING DOLL is an updating of the story ideas realized so vividly in the 1972 Eurohorror classic HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE with Spanish horror star Paul Naschy, amongst other sources. Man who works in morgue encounters hot babe, falls in love from afar or other position of being unable to fulfill his longings, he witnesses a cruel brutalization by someone who should be caring for her, she dies tragically & turns up as the next case on his slab the following morning. Oops.

Mark Jax plays the twenty-something slacker who takes his obsession with the gorgeous female in question too far by probing into her apartment and (apparently) hallucinates or imagines finding a note that says she suffers from a rare neurological condition which may render her inert and deathlike in appearance. So like Naschy's Gotho the Hunchie, he digs her up, takes her home and props her up on his couch with a blanket to keep her warm. Meanwhile she's really dead and the body starts to decompose while Jax imagines himself having conversations with the girl, and they start having a relationship of sorts.

Much of the film "works", including the pretend NYC environments which give the film a claustrophobic look where walls, ceilings and the trappings of life always seem to be filling in the background. Living in NYC is very compartmentalized in that one spends their day going from one box to another, riding on or in boxes shuttling one to additional boxes, and eventually you go back to your own box which is only yours because someone allows you to mess it up. I liked the Eartha Kitt landlady role, the part of the slacker buddy who gets sidelined by Jax' strange new girlfriend, and the decaying body scenes were appropriately revolting. But for me the best moment in the movie was when he gets pulled over by the cops (driving his Trans Am, yeah right?) after digging his beloved's corpse up. The policeman lets him go with a stern comment about needing to have his headlight fixed. There was abundant nudity, some nice slashes of ultra-violence, and a macabre air to the film that was at odds with the 1990's production values, which are actually rather high for such a project. This movie was very well made.

The problem is that the story never really gets involving: We watch Jax on his slow descent into madness but are never really anything more than witnesses to a bizarre obsession. HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE is over the top, energetic and frenzied in it's blasts of graphic gore, sexuality and macabre touches, some of which seem alluded to by individual moments seen in LIVING DOLL. But the lead character is so blasé, unconcerned and unable to deal with the crisis that develops that his predicament is always held at arm's length. Jax plays his role as if he were in CLERKS, and merely demented instead of the deranged psychopath that the movie calls for. The film also seems preoccupied with the need to be respectable even while being revolting, a very British trait and again at odds with what could have been a really sleazy, sensationalistic descent into the gutters of a NYC hospital morgue. Instead we get a taste of trendy slacker life in NYC ala 1991 & what really is just another weird, dysfunctional emotional entanglement between two mismatched lovers. The dead body could have been a blow-up doll and the film would have generated just as much intrigue, perhaps more.

So yeah, for once I am in total agreement with the consensus: LIVING DOLL might be an interesting rental diversion to check out but it certainly isn't one that I'll be watching again anytime soon, which is sort of the whole idea behind lower budgeted 1990's horror movies in the first place. This one was meant to be on the racks of rental shops & you'll not be doing any harm to yourself by renting it once and then having it returned there for the next victim. It is a commodity rather than a statement, and HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE deserves the same kind of restorative treatment when anyone feels like getting around to it.

5/10: "Myehh."