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“Oh, my god. The girl was right. The little people, they’re f***ing dolls!” A society where men are incidental? Hmm. Humans could learn from cockroaches. Join your faithful Grue Crew – Chad Hunt, Bill Mulligan, Crystal Cleveland, and Jeff Mohr along with guest host effects artist Ralph Miller III – as they brave the phobia of many-a-folk in Stuart Gordon’s Dolls (1987).
Decades of Horror 1980s
Episode 239 – Dolls (1987)
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Decades of Horror 1980s is partnering with the WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL (https://wickedhorrortv.com/) which now includes video episodes of 1980s and is available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, and its online website across all OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop.
Five adults and a child are stranded in a storm and spend the night in the mansion of an elderly couple who are dollmakers. The little girl realizes they take wicked humans, miniaturize them, and turn them into dolls.
- Director: Stuart Gordon
- Writer: Ed Naha
- Cinematographer: Mac Ahlberg (director of photography)
- Special Effects by: MMI (Mechanical and Makeup Imageries)
- Special effects makeup designer & supervisor: John Carl Buechler
- Chief makeup artist / Location Supervisor: Gabriel Bartalos
- Special effects makeup assistants: Gino Crognale, Mitch Devane, William Forsche (as Bill Forsche), Ralph Miller III, Bryan Moore, John Vulich
- Bear Fabricator: Helen Kinsey
- Doll effects & stop motion effects: David Allen
- Doll effects: John Brunner (as John K. Brunner), Vivian Brunner, Giancarlo Del Brocco
- Selected Cast:
- Ian Patrick Williams as David Bower
- Carolyn Purdy-Gordon as Rosemary Bower
- Carrie Lorraine as Judy Bower
- Guy Rolfe as Gabriel Hartwicke
- Hilary Mason as Hilary Hartwicke
- Bunty Bailey as Isabel Prange
- Cassie Stuart as Enid
- Stephen Lee as Ralph Morris
The Grue-Crew and guest host effects artist Ralph Miller III (who worked on the film’s effects under the supervision of John Carl Buechler), take a look at the often overlooked Stuart Gordon film Dolls (1987). The film is produced by Brian Yuzna and Charles Band for Band’s Empire Pictures, and, wheeee, is this film a lot of fun! “They Walk. They Talk. They Kill.” And, the more the Dolls do so, the more entertaining it becomes. John Carl Buechler handles the special makeup effects and David Allen takes care of the stop-motion animation duties. If you haven’t seen this, isn’t the pic with the doll holding its own bloody eyeballs enough to entice you?
At the time of this writing, Dolls is available for streaming from Tubi, Pluto TV, Shudder, AMC+, and Amazon Prime. It is also available on physical media in Blu-ray as part of the 5-disc Arrow Video collection, “Enter the Video Store: Empire of Screams Collector’s Set,” along with The Dungeonmaster (1984), Cellar Dweller (1987), Robot Jox (1989), and Arena (1989).
Every two weeks, Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1980s podcast will cover another horror film from the 1980s. The next episode’s film, chosen by Chad, will be Luther the Geek (1989). Well, it’s a movie.
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