LogFAQs > #976563039

28. The Doll (2016) (Netflix)

I saw there is a The Doll franchise on Netflix and I decided to check it out. It's an Indonesian horror film. Why not check out what I'm sure is the best that Indonesian cinema has to offer?

I was not prepared.

The Doll is about a couple that moves into a new home, and when the husband cuts down a tree that has a doll in it, they are being haunted by an evil spirit.

So this movie is about an hour and 45 minutes long and it frankly does not need to be that long. So that's one hurdle you need to consider.

But oh my god this movie absolutely sucked until it became incredibly hilarious. It's all funny to begin with, but then it's just completely off the wall absurd.

For one thing, they have the same stock stinger you hear in any movie when there's a jump scare and they abuse the fuck out of it. It doesn't matter what it is, they will use this stock stinger. It's so obnoxious.

And then you have the spirit itself which is always just waiting from some elevated area to just jump on them. That's mostly it.

Now I will grant that the girl spirit is actually very good! Really good work there! The rest of the effects are completely garbage though. There is a scene where she summons a million bats for some reason and it's the fakest CGI bats you've ever seen. And they don't actually attack, they just fly around. I laughed so hard at this.

But they just have so many bizarre script decisions like stopping them to talk about farts for a minute, or having what felt like the same conversations or same situations but slightly different for a while.

But the plot. Oh my god the plot. Let me tell you about some of my favorite plot points.

The beginning is a montage of some other family being haunted by the Doll. But it's just that the doll keeps appearing places. It felt like they were trying to use the style of Conjuring/Annabelle there.

The Doll is in a tree but nobody wants to cut it down. But they cut it down and the whole town protests it and the workers all have nightmares about it.

The wife possessed by the Doll spirit stabs the husband no less than a dozen times. Full on blade into the body. And the husband just doesn't act hurt for the remainder of the movie from it and is just running around.

The best friend is killed because she recommended a spirit medium. She goes outside the window and cuts her neck, jumps off with a noose, and then it rips her head clean off.

The Doll summons an army of terrible CGI bats that don't attack anyone but people have to pretend they are being mauled by them.

The Doll is not haunting them because he cut down the tree. The Doll is haunting them because the husband, out of nowhere, was afraid he was too poor to keep his wife, so he went to rob a family with a friend. The friend killed the whole family, including the daughter who is the evil spirit, and then the husband got away with the money.

The husband hears the garbage disposal going off and decides he should shut it off knowing the spirit wants to murder him dead. So he loses a hand over it.

The spirit possesses the husband and does the most hilarious CGI belly flop off the second story to the floor. And then he gets back up and the second time it's clearly a dummy with no impact on the fall at all. He dies from this.

Just phenomenal stuff. I actually recommend watching it if you want a so bad it's good foreign horror movie.

There's three The Doll movies and a spin-off called Sabrina. And they're all different dolls. And the only thing linking them is the same spirit medium is in all of them.

I somehow don't regret this. I laughed heartily. This movie is horrible though. It takes a certain art to be this so bad it's good.

Rating: 3.5/10