The Curse of Humpty Dumpty

Watched this last night and came away with the same thought after I had watched Jack In The Box.

Which is, there is more tension when you just see the dolls. The tension goes fast out of the door as soon as you see a person dressed as the dolls.

Both films had this in it and it wrecked the movie for me.

I did enjoy this movie but it could have been a whole lot better if they didn't have a person dressed as Humpty Dumpty. The film makers should have kept it at the creepy doll style story.

Overall a missed opportunity, shame really because the actors and actresses were all fine in the movie.

Well, from the movie's title and its cover/poster, I have to say that I wasn't exactly harboring much of any grand expectations to writer and director Scott Jeffrey's 2021 horror movie titled "The Curse of Humpty Dumpty". However, I still opted to watch it on the off-chance that it might actually be a worthwhile horror experience.

Let me just be blunt here and say that it wasn't.

The storyline in "The Curse of Humpty Dumpty", as written by Scott Jeffrey, was sort of simplistic. It wasn't that it was lazy writing or anything for the script; it was just sort of very bland and generic. Now, I will say that I thoroughly liked the dementia aspect to the storyline that Wendy Loomas (played by Nicola Wright) was suffering from, and the gradual return of warped and twisted memories as she and her daughters stayed at their family home.

I was only familiar with actress Nicola Wright on the cast list. But I will say that the actresses and actors did actually put on good enough performances, despite of the restrictions and limitations imposed by a somewhat bland script and storyline.

Visually then you're not in for a grand treat here. The doll was so painstakingly obvious just a guy wearing a costume and alternating between two blatantly obvious latex masks, given their inarticulate features.

For a horror movie then "The Curse of Humpty Dumpty" doesn't really impress. The movie just doesn't bring anything new to the genre. And it was lacking somewhat in the scare department.

My rating of "The Curse of Humpty Dumpty" lands on a very generous three out of ten stars.

A child caring for their parent (typically a mother) suffering from dementia has been done far better in horror before. This movie makes me think of a film like The Taking of Deborah Logan. Family conflict horror dramas are a popular subgenre right now (e.g., Hereditary), but like any trend, there are highs and lows. This is definitely a low.

I don't mind a slow burn, but there's a slow burn and then there's just tedium. And you know it's real tedium when the film finally gets to the "scary" parts and it's still tedious. The actors and the writing aren't compelling enough to draw me into liking/empathizing with this family. The only one kind of likable is the mother, and that's really because you're sympathetic to those dealing with her medical condition by default. In The Taking of Deborah Logan, the actress was very charming and good-natured and classy when she was herself, and her daughter's laid-back personality coupled with her sincere, heartbreaking concern for her mother kept you engaged in between the scares. This film did not.

This is not a scary movie by any means. Not even close. There is no tension. When the puppet transforms, it's too conventional to be scary. And it's too bland and detached to be touching/bittersweet/heart-breaking in the interim between attacks. The costume design was awful, especially for the scheming sister in law. What in the world were they thinking? I don't even think there was an actual costume designer because the clothes were clearly not tailored.

Anyway, all this movie did was make we want to watch The Taking of Deborah Logan again. If there are any positives, I would say that the puppet looks pretty good (in its normal state), and the actress playing the mom is passable (if not good enough to make what she's going through sad).

Started off sort of ok. However after 30 minutes I realised it was going to make my head hurt.

The acting was fairly good, but the horror parts were free and far between. One of the worst parts was when the police were called. When the officer turned up, it was as if the props person had raided a primary school's fancy dress box. I've seen a 6 year old make a better police costume.

I did watch the whole film, as I was intrigued to how it would end, but I admit I did fast forward all the boring and pointless bits.

However, I'm not going to spoil the ending as I want others to suffer watching this like I did.

So I was expecting the movie to be a B grade horror, one of those movies so stupid it's funny, but it wasn't at all.

But it was unexpectedly a decent movie.

Worth watching, the acting was good, and the story was pretty good too.