31 Nights of Horror Dolls
Platform: Amazon Prime Movies
Director: Stuart Gordon
Release Year: 1986
Watch Date: October 2, 2023
My Rating: 4.2
This movie is nothing amazing, but it also is a wonderful delight at the same time. It starts with a family driving in a car. The parents are clearly selfish horrible people, especially the step-mother. The little girl, Judy, has a wonderful imagination. I love when she imagines her bear growing and killing her parental.
The family is caught in a storm and ends up at a mansion in the middle of nowhere where a toymaker and his wife live. The toymaking couple invites the family in and feeds them some interesting looking…..soup. Along the way to the dining room, the toymaker gives Judy a Punch doll (that’s right, Punch from the dynamic duo Punch and Judy that originated in the 1600’s). While they are getting settled with their soup, two loud 80’s Madonna wannabes and a pudgy timid man (Ralph) come bursting through the door. The toymakers are clearly delighted with Ralph and Judy.
The two gals and the parents are given rooms across the hall from each other, where Judy and Ralph are taken to another wing of the house near the toymaker’s workshop. Judy gets up in the middle of the night to get a drink to find “the little people” dragging off one of the Madonna girls who was looking for stuff to steal. Naturally, her selfish parentals won’t listen to her, so she gets Ralph to investigate with her. Slowly the adults begin to be murdered by the dolls. In the end, Judy’s dad is turned into a new Punch doll after he destroys the one Judy was given.
The dolls allow Ralph and Judy to live because they are both kids at heart (although Judy is a literal kid). They are allowed to leave, and Ralph heads off to take Judy to her mom in Boston. As they drive away, you can hear Judy asking him if he is married and if he ever wanted a daughter. She is sure he’ll like her mom. We then go back into the house, where you can see four new dolls on the mantle…..four dolls who look exactly like the adults killed the night before.
The film ends with another couple getting stranded and heading toward the house. Will they be kids at heart? Or will they meet the same fate as the rest of the adults who have stayed at the house? The toymakers (who it turns out are magic) are quite the prolific serial killers when you realize that there are hundreds of dolls in their mansion. Yeesh!
I would definitely watch this movie again.
Photo Credit: imdb.com