“Ohhhhhhhhh … Teddy!”

I’d originally intended to watch the three Stuart Gordon movies I have on Halloween in the order in which they were made. Instead, impatient I started with this one tonight, mistakenly thinking it was the first of the bunch. I was going to pretend I hadn’t made that error initially and post the reviews in the “right” order … but now I’ve watched all three, I think maybe it’s a good place to start afterall. I really liked this movie, but was ready to freely admit that it’s got its issues. Now that I’ve seen Re-Animator and From Beyond though? Don’t get me wrong, both of those have their moments too, particularly past their half-way marks. But this almost seems like a masterpiece by comparison now considering it came from the same film makers.

“They’re trying to figure out if you’re really an adult … or just a kid in disguise.”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out for years!”

This is such a different take on the horror genre, and I loved it every turn it took. It’s more in the vein of The Company of Wolves, Paperhouse and (I think?) Dreamchild (lol I really must watch it again soon, I keep making comparisons to it which could be totally off) than the Dolly Dearest or Child’s Play type thing I half-expected. Looking at those first three titles I realise, they all had that same low budget British visual sensibility to them; despite the number of British accents in this movie, it’s not British, not of the same school at all, but it does have the same feel that those movies had, in addition to the same tone (there’s a “wicked stepmother” character in it who very much put me in mind of Hellraiser, too).

The message – a really quite stunningly scathing version of Toy Story 2‘s lessons, and in my opinion the reason why a lot of “grown-ups” won’t give this movie the time of day – really took me by surprise. I mean I guess I have to say, my response to this movie ultimately was a pretty personal thing – recently I’ve found myself more and more condensing my every disappointment in the world to one line, “I hate grown-ups,” and this movie couldn’t have put that sentiment better. There, I’ve said it. Seriously, I’m confident these dolls wouldn’t touch me, lol.

It also has a lot more humour in it than expected (“Yeh, but, are they anticues?” lol) Carrie Lorraine isn’t the greatest of actresses but she is adorably cute and delivers Eloise-like lines like, “What do you want from me? I’m 7 years old!” hilariously. She looks like Elijah Wood in a night dress and reminds me of the girl who played the younger Phoebe Cates in Drop Dead Fred.

Though, like the other two Gordon films, it never really gets that scary, there is something a little Birds-ish in the way it develops from this really kooky humour at the start, at which I was laughing right till the end, even as Judy’s father is turned into a replacement for the Punch doll he destroys. But it was somewhere during that scene in particular where I really started to think, wow, this is really wrong. Same thing with the toy soldiers which, out of all the toys, freaked me out the most, looking as they did like Camberwick Green type characters or something.

At barely 75 minutes it runs very much like the vignette-y short stories you’ll find on a lot of transformation-related websites – the mysterious old couple taking the lost family in on a stormy night, messing with their minds and bodies, and sending those who remain off just as the next batch arrive. It’s very cool to find a movie so like those stories, and I for one think there’s definitely room for more. I really can’t wait to watch it again, and at that length, one really needs no excuses.