Trying to get over a fear of the dark, a mother takes her son to a local toy-shop to buy a new doll only to hear terrifying tales about each of his potential choices.
The Good Stor(ies): Blood for Gold-Settling down for the night, a young son's insistence on seeing the mystical leprechaun from the stories' he's heard grows to an annoyance for his mother who tries to turn her attention to settling into the new house and her novel. As they continue cleaning up, the appearance of a strange Leprechaun doll around the house causes them to believe something isn't right about the object. Overall, this is a pretty decent way to get this one going. The cliche narrative of a couple moving into a new house and not being believers of the series of local stories are cleverly inserted throughout the early setup. It adds to the Gothic ambiance with the house's layout and the general darkness that's prominent throughout here alongside the other attempts at spotlighting the potential of something happening in the house. Once the doll shows up, the cliched notions of it changing positions in the house, appearing when it shouldn't and appearing to be caught red-handed performing obvious activities a doll shouldn't be doing make it obvious something's going on since this all takes up too much time before getting the full reveal of the killer doll walking around. The flashback to explain it all tries to add context to everything but this still runs on far too long before anything interesting happens.
Be Careful What You Wish For-Preparing to leave for a convention display, a lonely doll collector finally receives the latest addition to her collection that she will be showcasing at the upcoming convention. When her attempted reconciliation with a former beau causes the dolls to lash out and drive a wedge between them, finally forcing her to choose between the doll and potential romance. This was a pretty solid effort. The idea of the backstory involving both her physical deformity as well as the different abnormalities on the dolls that explains her attachment to them is quite enjoyable here as the whole downtrodden attitude and easily manipulated mindset she has makes for a sympathetic turn here while also generating the potential of what the dolls' obsessive behavior towards her entails. The various tricks and cheap-shots the doll takes to split them up are cleverly designed as genuine accidents while she knows better, furthering the split personality and descent into madness and loneliness that's at the root of the films' storyline as the final half turns into a much more ambitious and darker conclusion than expected. All in all, this was a highly enjoyable and worthwhile segment.
The Bad Stor(ies): The Clown-After too many sleepless nights, a mother takes her son to a local toy-shop to buy a new doll to get over a fear of the dark only to hear terrifying tales about each of his potential choices. Deciding to take a special clown doll home, he discovers that there might be something wrong with his choice of protector. This wasn't great but it's enjoyable enough. As a means of setting up the potential of the anthology, this is a perfectly serviceable idea that allows for a worthwhile setup in getting to the doll shop and causing the stories to be told about the dolls he selects. With the different figures around the shop providing the opportunity to look at the various stories told, that gives this quite a lot to like although the ending of this one carries so many cliches and comes across so obviously that it feels undermined by its overall setup. Combined with the rushed feeling and lack of proper cohesion as to why the dolls specially appeared in the store, this one isn't a bad effort but does feel quite problematic.
Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.
