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11 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Reasonable Rip-off of "Child's Play", 16 March 2006

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In Mexico, an archaeologist releases the evil spirit of a devil child from a tomb of an ancient tribe called Sanzia that worshiped Satan on Earth and dies in an accident. Immediately after, an American family with two children arrives to live and reactivate a factory of dolls in a site nearby the archaeological field. Elliot Read (Sam Bottoms) invested the savings of his family in this business to manufacture dolls. He finds many dolls left by the previous owners of the factory, and gives one of them, which is possessed by the fiend, to his daughter Jessica Read (Candy Hutson). The girl changes her behavior, speaks an ancient language and the maid tells to the mother Marilyn Read (Denise Crosby). Meanwhile, the archaeologist Karl Resnick (Rip Torn) arrives to investigate the finding of his colleague. However, the demon has been already released.

"Dolly Dearest" is a clear rip-off "Child's Play" franchise, but is not as bad as the expectation a reader may have with the IMDb Rating of 3.8. Indeed it is a reasonable horror movie, with characters and situation well developed for this type of movie. Denise Crosby plays again the role of a mother new arrival in a different environment that faces problem with his daughter, recalling her performance in "Pet Sematary" (1989). There are some accidentally funny scenes, like for example when Elliot Read is stabbed on his thigh and runs like a hell when the factory is blowing up but in general "Dolly Dearest" is watchable and entertains. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Boneca Assassina" ("Killer Doll")

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7 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
A new twist on an old plot., 10 December 1998
Author: anonymous from Tranquille

Think of it as the Mexican feminization of "Child's Play". This movie has an incredibly slow start, but is a good watch for fans of movies like the "Child's Play" series, "Dolls", the "Puppet Master" series, and any other movie where dolls can walk and talk. "Dolly Dearest" is your typical, satanically possessed inanimate object movie, containing such well-known actors like Candy Hutson (some of the "Land Before Time" movies), Chris DemetraI ("Somethimes They Come Back") and Denise Crosby ("Pet Sematary"), and comedic favorite Rip Torn. Set against the beautiful background of Mexico, much of the plot of this movie was involved with an ancient black magic curse associated with a pre-Mayan civilization.

It takes nearly a half hour before the movie really starts to get juicy, but once it does, you can't take your eyes off the screen for a second, or you miss something important. Dolly is a terrifying creature, with a tiny, tinny laugh that makes the viewer want to crack up. If you're expecting intelligence and deep meaning to a film, this isn't the horror film for you, but it's an excellent slasher pic. It's not too bad, since there's only a small amount of gore (about the same amount you'll find on a TV movie) and absolutely no nudity, but the satanic overtones may have many viewers picking another movie.

The little girl in the movie, Jessie Wade (Hutson), is written excellently, both as an exuberant young child, and as a slightly satanically possessed creature. Her brother Jimmy (Demetral) is also equally well-written. Where the movie falls short, however, is in the characterization of the mother. Denise Crosby is wasted in the role of this paranoid, semi-psychotic mother who is convinced from the start that her daughter is abnormally obsessed with Dolly (a correct assumption, but a little odd), yet doesn't even notice when her daughter's personality completely changes and she starts acting like an automaton. And never mind that no one notices the few dozen satanically possessed dolls wandering around.

On a scale of one to ten, this movie rates about a six and a half. The storyline behind the movie is mediocre, but the walking and talking dolls make up for it. The young boy is obviously the smartest of the entire lot, something that is typical of horror movies with children. It has the standard horrible ancient curse, but almost any movie regarding satanism or Central America does. I'd recommend it to anyone who's a fan of cult movies or cheezy horror films, in particular "Child's Play" (the first one) and "The Lightning Incident" (with Nancy McKeon), which are both extremely similar.

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4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
FAIR SPECIAL EFFECTS, BUT NOT SCARY, 21 November 1999

Author: TEXICAN-2 from Benbrook, Texas

This was one of those bad movies that had some good effects, but wasn't really scary, except to maybe a five year old.

The acting was good, but, the characters were annoying, and very stereotyped.

The life of the show was the terrific appearance of Rip Torn. He always seems to enjoy his work, and he has that kind of sarcastic side about him that you can chuckle at and not feel bad about it.

So good scares for the young or the faint-at-heart. Otherwise, just a standard possessed-doll-raising-hell-type movie.

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5 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Incorrectly classified as a slasher, 5 June 2007
Author: slayrrr666 (slayrrr666@yahoo.com) from Los Angeles, Ca

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

"Dolly Dearest" is a pretty decent film that has a couple good points and bad points.

**SPOILERS**

Arriving in Mexico, Elliot Read, (Sam Bottoms) and his family, wife Marilyn, (Denise Crosby) and children Jimmy, (Chris Demetral) and Jessica, (Candace Hutson) plan on starting the production of the Dolly Dearest Toy Factory. While they are exploring the site, Jessica becomes fascinated with a collection of dolls and takes one home with her. As she drags the doll with her everywhere she goes, Marilyn begins to worry about her and her unhealthy obsession. They find that the locals believe there's a strange curse on the land, and start to become suspicious when they start mysteriously disappearing. When archaeologist Karl Resnick, (Rip Torn) arrives in town to check on nearby ruins, he begins to search through the remains and finds a small tomb belonging to a long-lost tribe. Realizing that the curse is transforming the dolls into killing machines that are killing everyone around them, they race to stop the curse and the dolls.

The Good News: This here wasn't all that bad when it wanted to. One of the best features is the fact that the film really plays up the mystery of the doll. The film does a great job of making sure that the tribe may or may not be the cause of the curse. There's a big debate over whether the doll is behind the problems or the site itself. Even though it's fairly obvious, there's a real effort to play up the opposite angle, with the switch of the tribe responsible to the revelations of what the tribe was about. This is a nicely handled idea that really could've failed, since it's a red herring to an obvious reason, but that it even comes as anything sort of credible is a nice plus. When it wants to, this has a lot of great moments in here. One of the most impressive is a great sequence where a victim is found killed. Almost immediately, there's a supernatural presence involved in the house, blowing out windows and hurling furniture around. It's done during a violent thunderstorm as well, making it seem just that much more creepy. Then there's the final, lasting image of the sequence that is a really haunting vibe. There's a great action-packed conclusion that really brings some fun and life into the film with some hair-rising stunts and a pretty frantic pace. The doll itself is quite freaky and manages to evoke a big air of menace when it's on-screen. These all make the film watchable.

The Bad News: There's not a whole lot wrong with this one. One of the biggest is that the film takes an awful long time to get going. There's a good forty minutes before anything freaky occurs with the doll, and with it being so long, much of the beginning is set-up around the family moving in and settling to their surroundings. That's kind of a long time to show a bunch of nothing. It also takes a little while before it starts to get interesting, despite possibly going for several possibly interesting variations along the way. This also seems to be classified as a slasher, when it's not even close to one. The body count barely registers at all, the doll isn't the focus for much of the film and it's got hardly any other slasher film characteristics. This is pretty far from an actual slasher, which it really could've been quite easily been. The general premise is right there for it to be one, yet it strangely doesn't play out as such despite being targeted for slasher fans. The only other part of this that doesn't really work is that there's a real solid display of stupidity present in many of the people in the film. There's tons of scenes that clearly show something's wrong with any of the people, yet it's just simply dismissed out of hand, despite there being a good amount of evidence to the contrary. It's quite distracting and really manages to bring this down.

The Final Verdict: While it's got a fair share of good and bad qualities, in the end this falls right square into the realm of watchable without being extraordinary. Slasher fans might be disappointed by the mis-marketing, but it's still got enough positive points for those curious to give it a viewing.

Rated R: Violence and Language

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7 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Interesting storyline, wrong "Child's Play" influences., 23 October 2004
Author: insomniac_rod from Noctropolis

"Dolly Dearest" is a little early 90's horror flick with some pretensions. The storyline can be considered as a mix between the late 80's hit "Child's Play" and "Poltergeist II".

The whole "son of the devil" plot is quite interesting considering that it's linked with the delightful Maya civilization (a mystery sorrounds it's banishing from earth). The plot is imaginative until the dolls come to life.

"Child's Play" excuse to bring the doll to life is actually believable for people that are familiar with occultism, black magic, and voodoo.

"Dolly Dearest" copied the Chucky idea in order to seduce horror junkies but it failed big time.

The premise of the movie doesn't help it because the idea had been taken years before and the publicity campaign for the movie didn't say anything about the whole "son of the devil" thing.

OK the plot is something you've seen and it doesn't helps that the acting is AWFUL, the direction is boring and dull, the score is lame, and the f/x are laughable. To me, the best moment of the movie is when Rip Torn's character discovers the skeleton of the "son of the devil" (the body of a boy with the head of a goat). That was the only creepy moment.

Most of the situations are absurd. For example, the brat blonde girl talks with a possessed voice (like in "The Exorcist") and her geeky brother says something like "wow you learned how to speak". The line is stupid but you need to see the scene to get as mad as me. Also there are 2 huge goofs: The first one is when police determines that Luis death was caused by a heart stroke but they don't mention that his hand was almost cut in half! Then, you can hear from the police car's radio American people talking trying to imitate the Mexican accent. Why would American people work for the Mexican police!? The producers couldn't find more Mexican extras.

"Dolly Dearest" had potential but it's problem came when deciding which movie ideas to mix. The "Poltergeist" inspiration went well but stealing the idea of "Child's Play" didn't work while trying to put it on the storyline.

3/10. Boring early 90's cheese. No gore, no scares.

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5 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
An underrated if somewhat predictable movie, 30 March 2007

Author: rwsrws from NY -- United States

I agree with the earlier review by Richard Wheeler: if you see this as a rerun of Child's Play you are not getting the gist of the film. The story centers on a classic horror device (one that I never get tired of) of pitting different realities against one another: the extinct Sanzia reality (the devil child spirit), the Mexican Catholic reality (nuns and candles), and the modern American reality (explosions). This occurs in relation to another classic device, the possessed doll -- although in this case the dolls derive more from Curse of the Doll People than from Child's Play. The story follows fairly predictable lines (the biggest twist: no sudden twist at the end -- thankfully!) but kept me entertained throughout. I also like Rip Torn in the older roles, and Denise Crosby was good. The child actors were also not annoying (and the little girl was on occasion pretty scary). The production designer also deserves kudos for the simple but effective crypt.

My only complaint is that I could do without the animatronic doll faces, which were well enough done but not very original. Possessed dolls whose faces remain placid and serene are much scarier, plus they don't talk as much.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Dull killer doll flick., 24 November 2009
Author: Prolox from Canada

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

After the CHILD'S PLAY series ran out of gas in 1991, Other producers scrambled to see if they could catch lightning in the same bottle & possibly create a new horror franchise & icon similar to Chucky, one of them was DOLLY DEAREST, a horror thriller set in Mexico where an American family buys an old doll factory with plans on re-opening it to start production, while touring the building, they discover DOLLY DEAREST dolls, from which the young daughter becomes transfixed on the doll & begs her father to let her keep one, bad mistake. like in all killer doll flicks. mysterious killings occur & the little girl claims the doll is talking to her, as the family probes deeper, they discover a horrifying past regarding the mine next to the factory, where an ancient cult trying to raise the son of Satan, instead unleash angry supernatural forces that possess all the dolls who want the family dead. With the help of a Miner, they attempt to stop the evil dolls grisly intentions & save their daughter. Despite the somewhat creepy dolls & good acting & directing, DOLLY DEAREST really isn't that different from a million other killer doll flicks languishing on the shelf, there's hardly any scares to be found here & gore hounds will be disappointed by the absence of blood. The film feels overlong, even though it's only 90 minutes but it feels longer than that & the film is never atmospheric enough to pull off what could have been a few moments of good scares. Not the worst of it's type, but could have been better. A forgotten killer doll movie & it's not hard to see why, in fact, just rent CHILD'S PLAY, DOLLS or even PUPPET MASTER, since they are so much better than this one.

** stars

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6 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
It's Not A Killer Doll Film. It's Something Else....., 14 December 2006

Author: Richard Wheeler from South Africa

Dolly Dearest,however, comes across to most people as a "Child's Play Rip-Off" and a "Cheesey Low-Budget Horror Movie" when in fact, it's neither of what they think it is! Dolly Dearest is actually a very clever film produced with original ideas. It doesn't copy Child's Play that much because, the Dollies are not killer dolls, they are possessed by a devilish spirit that "wants children and would do anything to spread it's word to the children". Therefore, the evil spirit takes the form of toys because, it knows that children love dolls (mainly little girls). And it is an easier way to get to children and possess them and turn them into the "Sanzia Devil Child", just like what happened to little Jessica in this movie.

If my review doesn't agree with you, that's OK! Because you are entitled to your opinion. If you don't, I suggest you watch it a couple of times and let your imagination run wild because, I think the idea of this film is mainly left to the imagination.

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It's a scary doll, 15 March 2012

Author: electra_complex

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

SPOILY SPOILERS The Read's/Rade's/Wade's (they are referred to all three names during the movie) move to Mexico from L.A, cutesy Jessica is not too happy so to compensate her, her parents put all her weird behavior including (but not limited to) speaking a dead Mexican Satanist language, speaking in a voice normally reserved for demons on cable exorcisim shows, being rude to the maid, cutting her own hair, drawing pictures of hellbeasts, having screaming fits in the car and turning into a dark eyed, pasty, non-verbal problem child who sneaks around with pointy weapon, down to the move and definitely not to the ugly doll her father gave her from the abandoned factory he was tricked into buying.

It's fine as a movie, couple of creepy moments (where the doll is in the chair, Denise Crosby hears clippy clacky steps, looks up and sees the chair rocking on it's own) but as scary as a loaf of bread and similar in other ways too, like it's plain, in need of something else to give it flavor and bloodless.

No reason you should avoid it if you like cheesy horror and if you are reading a review on it you obviously do.

Special mention of Candy Hutson, she was very good in this and it's a pity we don't see more of her

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1 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Evil force leads to one hellish dolly mixture., 29 July 2010

Author: tyler-and-jack from Edinburgh.

Child's Play certainly has a lot to answer for. Well, maybe that's not really fair as Child's Play simply exploited a great horror conceit that had been used again and again over the years (from Dead Of Night to the "Living Doll" episode of The Twilight Zone) and wrapped it up in a wonderfully entertaining way for more modern audiences. But Child's Play led to the likes of Child's Play 2 and Dolly Dearest, both inferior movies and with the latter being the worst of the lot.

Dolly Dearest is a gender-twisted version of Child's Play with all of the good stuff thrown out and a lot of illogical, implausible moments left in (and, let's face it, Child's Play wasn't that logical or plausible itself but at least tried to paper over some of the bigger cracks). It's written and directed by Maria Lease so it would seem that the main person to point a finger at would be . . . Maria Lease.

We start off with a man trying to enter some area of archaeological worth in Mexico with fatal results. This seems to release an evil force in the shape of some lively red mist that travels into a nearby, run-down doll workshop. Cut to one man taking his family (including wife Denise Crosby) all the way to live in the house by that very workshop to begin his new life as a maker of fine dolls. When his daughter spies one of the little plastic gals sitting on a shelf she asks for one and that's the start of mini menace and dolly devilishness.

Let's go through things one at a time here, starting with the script. It's bad. It's not on a par with the worst of the worst but it's simply flat and unentertaining throughout while the actual machinations of the plot are even more unbelievable than most, mixing in elements from The Omen, Child's Play and even the likes of Don't Go To Sleep but doing so with far less success than any of them.

The acting is pretty bad. I don't know who kept giving Denise Crosby these "caring mother" roles at this stage in her career but they just don't suit her. Luckily, she went on to find other roles that she was much better suited to but here she barely rises up to average in places. The only other really well-known face here is Rip Torn, doing okay in his role despite mangling a terrible accent at all times. The husband character (played by Sam Bottoms) is almost completely redundant until the finale, the young lad (Chris Dematral) is the best of the lot and the girl (Candy Hutson) who grows so dangerously attached to Dolly is almost embarrassing in places with her exaggerated attempts at nastiness and feigned affection.

Direction is flat and uninspired. There are TWO "cat jumps" in here even though nobody in the family actually owns a cat. That's just laziness in the extreme, even if we're to believe that someone else's cat just keeps nosing round. Everything is done that can be done to drain all tension and scares out of every scene. The big reveal of Dolly's true self and the threat she really is? As flat as every other scene, which is annoying for genre fans like myself who know that the concept is a winner and in the right hands can always deliver solid fare.

For the central notion alone, and the very rare moment of near-goodness, this gets 3/10.

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