An exercise in poor taste: blood dolls

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Yes, I’m aware that there currently is no SmarksDVD, so pending its return, my submission of sample columns is rather pointless.  What can I say? I like writing, I like The Smarks, and I like watching movies… it’s a natural fit, particularly since I’m too lazy to post ‘em on my own webpage (which not only isn't DVD or wrestling realated, but also hasn’t been updating since February pending my re-downloading of vital HTML progs since I have yet to re-learn how to work with raw HTML).

 

Anyway, it’s Spring Break, which to me means lotzo’ matzo (or matzah, depending on how you want to spell it in English), and lots of free time.  More serious, non-spoiler review of this is pending (waiting for IMDb to post it).  More relevant (and current) reviews will come later in the week, as soon as I can get over to Hollywood Video to rent something.  Until then…

 

Blood Dolls (1999)

Full Moon Pictures

 

Movie (first two paragraphs complete with minor plot spoilers!):

Charles Band, founder of Full Moon Pictures and its chief creative influence, loves killer puppets/dolls (the first and still most popular Full Moon franchise being that of the Puppetmaster series, he certainly owes them a debt).  Who can blame him? Not only are they a bad-ass reinterpretation of many people’s natural fear of creepy old dolls, but they’re also highly marketable.  Blood Dolls’ title characters are Pimp (pretty self-explanatory, a ‘70s-blaxploitation stereotype, with gold teeth, chains & jewelry, feather-in-hat, and cane; he’s like The Godfather, but cool, and, oddly enough, a cold/pale white skin color), Sideshow (a big muscular carny-type guy with tons of tattoos and piercings; think of him as… uhh… Chainz, if his appearance matched his name and he wasn’t such a loser), and Ms. Fortune (think stereotypical “Dragon Lady” female villain in kung-fu movies, only with 4 arms… sorry, I’m not Justin Baisden, so I don’t know any puro references).  The Dolls are, amazingly, not the strangest of all the characters.  Their creator, Virgil, wears a mask that, because of odd camera angles, appears to present emotion.  He wears a mask because his head is the size of an avocado.  His associates are Mascaro, an assassin decked out in clown make-up, and a little person butler.  He also has a personal band of GIRLS IN A CAGE~! Go-go clubs got nothing on this guy… he rules! Seriously, the cast of characters alone makes this one at least worth a rental.

 

Virgil got screwed out of a billion dollars by his business partners (and you thought the Montreal screw job was bad!).  Seeking revenge, he has Mascaro and the dolls go out and kill his associates.  Unfortunately, the deaths are fairly standard, nowhere near as cool as in Full Moon’s signature Puppet Master series, with the exception of one taking place on a bondage/torture rack.  The reason there happens to be a bondage/torture rack just lying around in a movie like this is because the “smartest” of Virgil’s ex-associates is just a puppet for his wife, a dominatrix.  She is the only person in the movie who notices that people are being killed by animated dolls, and traps the dolls and Virgil.  What goes on from there is certainly one of the strangest twists I’ve seen from Full Moon in a while…

 

OK, this is textbook Full Moon, so if you hate Full Moon, you’ll hate this movie.  You might as well stop reading now and go read some fan-boy drool over “a good horror movie like Blair Witch Project or Jeeper’s Creepers” (gimme a break!).  If, however, you’re a Full Moon/low-budget aficionado there’s a lot to love in this one.  There are the dolls, again, admittedly not as cool as the Puppet Master characters, but good enough for a killer doll fix.  The aforementioned band of GIRLS IN A CAGE~! provides the soundtrack at many mini-music-video interludes (if they don’t play, they get shocked), and their music matches the mood of a horror movie and is actually really well done.  The plot is pretty standard up until the weird twist, either you like plots like that or you don’t.  I’ll admit I’m biased – if I saw the same plot with the same characters in a big-budget film, I’d bitch about it having great characters but overall being a clichéd waste of my money, but for a low-budget direct-to-video horror film, this is a beautiful thing.  Charles Band remarks in his Videozone commentary that this will be one of the few Full Moon pictures that will be remembered over the years; I have to agree with him on that one, this is great stuff.

 

Presentation:

This was the first Full Moon release ever presented in 1.85:1 widescreen (their others have all been full-frame, because almost every single one was shot on video; I believe this one was shot on 16mm film).  Besides being the first Full Moon widescreen, it’s also 16x9-enhanced and features no major discrepancies or errors that I could notice.  Sound was fine, nothing extraordinary (Amazon says its Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, but then they also say the film is full-frame).

 

Special Features:

This was released before Full Moon’s “Lunar Edition” period, when they worked with Tempe Entertainment and had a ton of special features on their discs.  This is the probably the most packed pre-Lunar Edition Full Moon feature, with commentary (Charles Band, Jack Maturin [Virgil], Debra Mayer [dominatrix wife]), trailer, “Pain” music video, bloopers/outtakes, Full Moon Videozone (one of the last Videozones ever!), and clips from a Penelope Spheeris documentary on the making of a low-budget film.

 

The commentary is great, the three have a lot to talk about on production, and have a habit of pointing out their own continuity errors.  It’s interesting stuff, and it’s obvious that the three, especially Band, just really love making movies.  An interesting fact was that an original concept was for the GIRLS IN A CAGE~! to go on tour under the name “Blood Dolls” and release the soundtrack on CD, but alas, it was not meant to be.  The trailer and bloopers/outtakes are pretty standard features, as is the “Pain” music video, which is a pretty good song but just set to movie clips.  For more interesting behind the scenes info, check out the Full Moon Videozone and the documentary clips.  The Videozone is essentially a Full Moon behind-the-scenes/fluff feature that has been around since the label began in 1989, but Full Moon stopped putting together Videozones with the new millennium, so it’s an interesting bit of nostalgia.  The interview clips from the documentary feature mostly the actresses playing the GIRLS IN A CAGE~! talking about what they really do and how they got into a low-budget feature.  I’d be interested to know if the full documentary is available anywhere.  This would’ve been more than enough for a Full Moon disc from the period, but on the flip-side of the disc are 40 (!) Full Moon trailers, almost an hour and a half of even more Full Moon nostalgia.

 

Overall:

This was the first Full Moon release I ever saw, so, combined with all the old skool Full Moon trailers and old skool Full Moon Videozones, it’s hard for me to take a critical eye to this.  The main reason for this though, is that this is one of the best Full Moon films ever – the same formula, but with a memorably bizarre cast of characters.  There are tons of Full Moon haters out there, but Full Moon releases are really just about having a good time with movies made by people who really love them.  This film is close to my heart, and if you’re not a Full Moon hater, it should be close to yours too.  And if you ARE a Full Moon hater? There hasn't been an enjoyable major-release horror movie since Halloween.  Jeeper’s Creepers sucked.  Blair Witch Project sucked.  Get over it.

 

As a final note, apparently the film is being reissued, and that is the version available for pre-order on Amazon, with the full-frame and Dolby Digital Mono.  I have a bad feeling that they cut the cool old skool special features on the “reissue”, so if it’s really being reissued, watch out for that.

 

I sure hope the Smarks’ server is back to normal soon.  I want my SmarksDVD! I need my Jay Spree fix…

 

Edward Robins

abba_owns_me at hotmail dot com