Le Cimetière de l'Enfer

Unearthing a set of dolls in his backyard, a teen finds that they have come to life during a party with his sister and her friends being guided by the ghostly spirit of their original owner looking for revenge for how she was treated and must find a way to get away alive.

This one was quite the enjoyable and entertaining killer doll effort. Among the better qualities here is the fact that there's a lot of nice work done here on exploiting a nice overall premise to this one, which lets this one come off as a classic storyline for this kind of effort overall. The initial scene of the dolls getting buried and the accident that strands the girl with them is a great way to begin this kind of effort, and their discovery scene later on gives this the solid build-up needed to give the scenes of them on the rampage the right context to really give this a solid and engaging series of set- pieces. The fact that the dolls are allowed to wander through the house on a raging thunderstorm works incredibly well here not only at developing a solid atmosphere with the party going on letting the dolls to sneak up unknowingly on them for the bedroom encounter on the tied-up boyfriend, their ghostly taunts in his bedroom and the way they sneak into the kitchen to take out the drunken jock makes for a strong series of scenes here letting the dolls get a chance to show themselves off which has the chance to showcase the usual rather strong effects work on the dolls themselves as they're unique creations that are quite well designed. These here manage to hold this one up quite well over the film's few but still detrimental flaws here. The biggest issue here is the fact that there's very little about the dolls' actions or concept of attack that make sense here, being driven by a motivation of revenge that makes no sense why they're targeting the family specifically which is spelled out here. They're not related to the previous owner who initially caused the incident, and that means the possession attempts don't really work here for the most part as there's little about this that would make for a believable course of action. Likewise, that they seem so unafraid of the dolls makes no sense at all as there's very little that shows them being terrified of the situation and it really makes for quite a troubling and somewhat laughable series of attacks. That's certainly not helped along by the fact that the dolls themselves are quite stiff-looking and rather unconvincing in their movements, and really tends to make their scenes somewhat of a disappointment. Otherwise there's not a whole lot wrong here.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, drug use and excessive drinking.

Through out the early 90's, Charles Band's Full Moon Pictures churned out many classics like "Puppet Master", "Trancers", "Doctor Mordrid", "Subspecies", etc. The company has changed names and faces a few times over the last decade or two, but usually put a mentionable quantity of decent films. But I have to say, with DOLL GRAVEYARD and many other recent short bores, Full Moon has fallen dead.

Charles Band recycles his killer doll formula with this and a few other recent crapfests, making 70 min features with characters made to be easily manufactured as toys. The story bores on through horrible acting and even worse story, with less doll carnage than promised. One of the few redeeming qualities of this film is the design of the dolls themselves. The Samurai and stoned looking tribesman were cool characters.

Overall, I caution Full Moon fans to turn away from Charles bands newest abominations, and save themselves.

Tame but amusing further foray in to killer puppets for Charles Band and Full Moon. Short on action and on death scenes (though those included are fairly gory) this is watchable mainly because of the cast of hammy young actors and the barely over an hour length. Story begins with 12-year old Sophia (a bewitching Hannah Marks) playing with her only friends, some ugly dolls. Her father shouts at her about everything and anything (more extreme abuse is suggested but never shown) and demands she dig a shallow grave for her puppet friends as he is fed up with them cluttering up her life. She digs the hole and then as he helps her out she falls and breaks her neck. Thus Sophia and her friends are buried 'alive' together.

Fast forward a few decades and another lonely child, this time a boy called Guy (Jared Kusnitz) moves in with his single dad and brat induced older sister. Dad pops out for a date and sister is forced to stay home and watch Guy. However she invites her two friends around (one a blonde slut, the other a very sensible, studious girl). Two dumb lads invade the house to play sex with the girls. They bully Guy and make their moves on the girls. Nice friend Terri is not impressed and joins Guy upstairs admitting that her heart melts when he strolls by. They both have a passion for puppet models and meanwhile Guy has dug up some dolls from the shallow grave out back. The dolls talk to him and take revenge on his tormentors. Can Guy break free from his new friends to save the girl who loves him? Shot on digital video the movie looks good, dolls are superb and well animated. Music is heavily criticised in other reviews but it never intrudes on the story and therefore merely acts as a backdrop to what is going on rather than - as with certain Puppet Master films - being vital to create tension. The closing song sounds very much like Charles Band's musician son Alex (from band 'The Calling') though apparently it is not him...but then writer August White is not Charles Band either ;-0

I thought they stopped making movies like this in the 80's, but apparently not. Imagine the worst of the Chucky movies, and then imagine something even worse, then you're getting close to this one.

The movie starts in 1911 with a girl playing with dolls, then she accidentally breaks a vase. Her evil and angry father comes down the stairs and yells at her. She is then forced to bury her beloved dolls, and then she accidentally falls down in the grave on the samurai doll's katana(sword) and she dies... Then we are brought to present time and the horror unravels! Sounds bad? Believe me, it is!

The production gives me this "made for TV movie" feel, with cheesy music, bad direction, etc. The dolls aren't even close to being scary, more humorous than anything.

Avoid this movie.

Its still not quite as good as the Puppet Master series as it lacks the stop motion filming, but its a good premise. A merciless sadist of a father has his daughter bury her dolls and then buries her along with them. When a toy collector unearths one of the dolls, the dolls arise from the shallow grave as well as the vengeful spirit of the young girl.

The execution, however, wasn't as good as it could have been. In one scene a girl's face is bitten and the wound is there before the doll can attack that spot. Some of the scenes get tossed around randomly. And the victims, despite being less than 10 feet away from the door, never actually get around to running out the door. The final confrontation is clunky and so is the manner in which they stop the dolls.

If you like animated dolls in these films, its worth a short watch as its run time is just a little over an hour.