Dolly was . . . a Movie

I recently subscribed to Shudder for the first time in a while. That’s how I manage my streaming apps. I typically subscribe to two or three at a time and rotate them. It’s been a while since I streamed Shudder, so I figured why not. The first movie I watched was Dolly, mostly because I recognized it from people posting about it on my socials. I had no idea what it was about because I paid no attention to those posts that way I could go into the movie blind without people’s opinions bouncing around my brain while trying to enjoy the film.

Trying to enjoy the film.

Trying to enjoy the film.

It sucked. I could just end this post there and walk away but I’ll let you know why I thought the movie sucked. What good is a hot take without some depth, right?

SPOILERS AHEAD!

First off, I wasn’t a fan of the grindhouse effect despite everything in me that should dig that sort of thing, considering what an affinity I have for gritty, grindhouse cinema. It seemed put on. Disingenuous. Fake. It was distracting. At first, I thought this was going to be one of those movies with an ambiguous timeline, kind of like It Follows, where you’re not entirely sure which decade the film is set in because it borrows from the past fifty years, and it kind had that feel with the old car, the 16 millimeter film blown up to 32 look, the nod to Texas Chainsaw Massacre country music in the car (who the fuck listens to that kind of old school country these days . . . seriously?), but then our leading lady whips out a cell phone and we know these are modern times . . . or maybe some kind of time warp where things got a little fucked up and blended (because the cell phones disappeared at some point). I don’t know. Either way, it was very distracting at first. If the intention was to create ambiance, for me it did just the opposite. It screamed of a filmmaker who was trying too hard.

The CGI flies in those early sequences with Dolly were pathetic. I laughed. Remember the flies in The Amityville Horror? Yeah, that’s how you do flies. Fuck your budget. Keep the windows open and put something in the room to attract flies (yes, I oversimplify this). Shoot your scene and get something that looks real. And where the fuck did those flies go later on during the last two thirds of the film that take place in that goddamned house? Nary a CGI fly to be seen or heard. Would have been a nice touch. Maybe have them buzzing around the protagonist’s face when she’s trying to keep quiet and hide. Would have created some great tension. I will say, that seemed to be where the CGI ended, thankfully. The use of practical effects was a big plus.

The acting was fine. Some of the writing was a little stilted, which made for an unbelievable relationship between the couple who go out into the woods to see this beautiful outlook where the guy is going to propose even though he seems like he’s completely annoyed and bored with his girlfriend. I actually thought he was going to push her off the ledge, giving the story some kind of plot twist right from the get-go. But no, he hears something in the woods, goes to investigate, and is killed. Just like in every other fucking horror film. This begins a pattern of his girlfriend treading upon every single shitty decision people have been making in horror films for decades, such as running up the stairs instead of trying to escape from ground level or barely knocking the villain out and not pummeling them so they can’t so easily come after her, or better yet killing the villian. And this shit happens over and over again. I kept thinking, haven’t you seen Scream? That fucking movie taught us what not to do in a horror movie to avoid all the typical tropes and pitfalls.

When you first see Dolly there’s a genuine creepiness to the weird, large doll face mask but, unfortunately, that wears thin pretty quickly. I mean, it’s on the cover image for the film, so it’s no real secret and the reveal of said villain’s mask isn’t nearly as effective as it could have been. But the sheer amount of screentime that doll face gets becomes quite annoying by the end and loses its effectiveness. In the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Leatherface’s mask never once becomes any less that creepy and frightening, probably due to not only it being a nasty patchwork of dried human flesh but getting less screen time. Even Freddy Krueger’s burnt face instills a sense of dread and grotesquerie in the first two A Nightmare on Elm Street movies before becoming a one-liner delivering cheese fest in the sequels. Part of that is due to the film, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, building tension before the villain attacks, whereas Dolly seems like one prolonged chase scene in the house, up and down the stairs, constantly making foolish decisions with no real sense of survival in the face of something that should have been absolutely terrifying and brought out the survivor instinct in any one of us were we in the same situation. We saw so much of that damned doll face that I became tired of it.

Why did Dolly have superhuman strength? Why could no one lift the bar blocking the door? There were so many gaps in logic that it seemed like maybe there was a lot more to this movie but it had to be cut down to a certain runtime, thus losing some important scenes that would have better tied everything together. Like when the protagonist’s ear gets half ripped off. I guess I blinked and missed how that happened. She sure was patient while Dolly sewed it back on though.

Ok, so after my critical analysis of the film (some folks would argue that I shouldn’t write this about an indie film because I’m an indie author yada yada—I don’t care) I will say I did like the feeding scene. That was uncomfortable and pretty nasty. And honestly it was the bottle and solid food part, not so much the breastfeeding part. Despite the film trying too hard, I appreciated the atmosphere of the house. Dirty, dingy, nasty, just the way I like ‘em. Like I mentioned before, I appreciated the practical effects, even the guy’s comical half rippedoff jaw. At first, it was a gruesome effect when he awoke and started crawling but later became something kind of cheesy. I like some cheese and I like plenty of cheesy films but this was clearly supposed ot be a disturbing film. Shit, I got all critical again and I’m supposed to be mentioning what I liked. Sorry.

And I’m sorry if you had to sit through this turd. It wanted to be a good film, it really did. It even tried, and I give it an A for effort . . . I guess. I’ve seen much worse. I can’t help but wonder if this film was made from a place of love for the horror film genre that overshadowed bad writing and, sadly, making every mistake an astute student of horror film should try desperately to avoid. Maybe this is just a love letter to old school grindhouse and VHS boom horror and I was taking it too seriously.

But don’t take my word for it. Go watch it and judge for yourself (although I assume you haven’t read all the way through if you haven’t seen the movie yet). It’s streaming on Shudder.