DIRECTED by Rod Blackhurst, Dolly is a nauseating low-budget slasher about a mute, hulking serial killer in a broken-eyed porcelain doll mask, blonde wig, and a quaint prairie dress.
When this horror flick grows up it clearly wants to be The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but alas, in its infancy, it proves far too tedious for such lofty comparisons.
Blackhurst’s film takes obvious influence from seventies exploitation films such as The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes with Rob Zombie’s work used as a high-falutin’ measuring stick. Sadly, though, Dolly lacks the vision and ingenuity to warrant mention in the same company as modern Zombie classics as House of 1000 Corpses or The Lords of Salem.
The monster at the centre of this film, played by wrestler Max the Impaler, enters this rather grim and grimy tale by committing a graphic and horrifying dismemberment on an unwitting victim minding their own business in the woods. It’s a ghastly scene, hard to get past unshaken, but as it turns out, it’s really all the Nashville-based filmmaker has in his box of heinous revelations. This early jaw-dropping mutilation – literally jaw-dropping – is not for the faint of heart, but it’s all kindergarten hissy fits after that, so fear not!
The slasher subgenre is not one blessed with original ideas very often, but when done right it doesn’t have to be so jarringly predictable as Blackhurst’s poor imitation of Tobe Hooper’s seminal Texas Chainsaw masterpiece proves to be.
Even the film’s ‘final girl’ Macy (Fabianne Therese) has a real infuriating tendency to dawdle when chance of escape raises fleeting windows of opportunity in the creepy woodland house where she is held captive. There’s plenty of gore to keep horror nuts salivating, but overall, the whole thing loses points on the plausibility metre, as well as a general lackadaisical air that makes a real dummy of this crazed mannequin.
(3/5)