Review by Matt Boiselle - DOLLY: The First Movie In a While That Had Me At An Impasse

It was on my radar...from the first glimpse of the trailer months ago I was hooked. The grittiness, the griminess, the appearance of a movie that had been shot through a cheesecloth...and that magnificent tease of gore that would make any lover of the crimson drool with fervency. So I waited, and waited...and waited more until the one local theater in my area decided to shine the heavenly light of oblation towards the horror loving community, so I purchased an advanced ticket to a one night only showing of DOLLY from Director Rod Blackhurst. 

So I hopped in my car and drove a short 10 miles in an ice-storm (see the sacrifice I was willing to make?), dropping my contented buns into a recliner seat at the theater along 7 other eager fans (small crowd for sure) ready to take in some exhibitionist slaughter. When the credits rolled and the lights came up in the showing room, I simply sat in contemplative reticence, unknowing of how I felt about the presentation that was just laid out in front of me.

Starring Seann William Scott (Chase) and Fabienne Therese (Macy) as a couple heading to the woods to engage in a little post-engagement sightseeing and celebration, with Macy knowing full well what Chase has up his sleeve and has expressed trepidation to her friend about it, due to the fact that his young daughter is in the mix, albeit spending time at a relative's house while the two cavort through the woods.

Not before long in the forest do they stumble on just about the damned creepiest assortment of dolls nailed to trees and laid out ceremonially in the grass, and that's when "Mother" comes into play. Portrayed by hulking professional wrestler "Max The Impaler", we have a porcelain-masked figure displaying enough heinous and barbaric tendencies that it would have made Leatherface stand back and tip his chainsaw in respect.

Mother is surgical with a shovel, and we then progress towards the "care taking" level of this film, with Macy having been abducted and taken to Mother's home, where she is dressed like a small child, bottle-fed and generally babied by the monstrous villain.

This is the point where I think my otherwise constructive and condemning thought-processes shut off, and I watched the remainder of this movie in blank deliberation - was I hating this or loving it? For all intents and purposes DOLLY is not in fact, your generic slasher film - it's an exercise in mental testing, imagining what this woman was going though being held hostage during what should have been one of the happiest days of her life, instead fighting for everything she's got left, and let me tell you, this woman can fight!

Her situation is grueling and we as the audience are forced to sit through every agonizing moment of it, and perhaps I'd envisioned something a little more simplified like an all out marathon slaughter-fest, but with the relatively small cast the hopes for numerous offing's just didn't come to fruition.

Let me be blunt in stating that I didn't want to leave the movie theater disappointed but honestly I feel like I was to some small extent, and while there's ALWAYS a shot for potential sequels I feel like this specific showing could've added more to the fishbowl that is horror observation.

Now this certainly isn't a comprehensive review by any stretch, but rather a perspective of what my feeble mind was chewing up at the time of eyeballing this production. The grit, grime, blood, guts and mother's milk were all on display here, and the way everything was shot definitely pays tribute to those dingy, ferocious splatter films of the 70's, and for that some horror fans of that specific look will salute til the sun goes down, but for this jaded commentator, DOLLY needed a few more plastic friends to play with - perhaps a "Barbie" crossover in the future needs to be blueprinted.