User reviews

Like most of the horror today, it's clearly made on cellphones by a 12 year-old whose uncle runs a not-for-profit community theater. There is no notion of cinematography, especially in camera movement or lighting. The music is generic. The acting is cheesy. There are dumb masks.

Avoid. I don't even know you but I am kindly sparing you a wasted hour-and-a-half of your life. Avoid. this. "movie".

Watched this before the bad reviews starting coming in and the rating was higher. We kept thinking that something was going to happen to explain what the heck was going on, why is this doll killing people, but it's not! The Arthur doll was ok and sort of creepy. The "effects" such as blood were extremely bad, did they just find red paint and pretend it's blood? We were 45 minutes into it and said "let's stop" but then saw there wasn't much time left (1/2 hour) and thought we'd soldier through it. Oh well, I've seen worse in the past and will probably see worse in the future, but definitely cannot recommend this to anyone.

This is one of those movies that is neither clear (explained) neither positive. There is mystery, curse, darkness, odd and bad people. Unlike in most movies, in this one everybody was so bad. Like this movie is coming from somebody's dream, the nightmare. Like something about cults, rituals, black magic, and other negative and scary stuff. It was a bit funny doll making movements and kids at the end beating up innoccent man. But unfortunately everything is so nonsense, meaning not explained or reasonable, so no more than 2 stars. Worst of all everything looks fake, even we can see real human hiding only part of face with mask.

Let's face it, horror films with low or high budgets being produced today, are the worst they've ever been. I have not seen one decent horror film in three years. The stuff being made now is just horrorBLE. And after watching the trailer for this film, I can further conclude that it's another film that should be avoided. Gone are the days of good horror movies, nowadays it's nothing but stupidity and bad acting... especially for horror movies.

As I stated in my review for The Convent, when a successful film is released a lot of people jump on the bandwagon to sell their goods. However, unlike The Convent, this snake oil is putrefied.

There are only two minor elements within this picture that are decent. The first is the actor you portrays the literary agent. He's the only one in the cast who appears to take his craft seriously. Jon-Paul Gates isn't too bad as the lead Brendon but he does get wooden and hammy throughout the film. However, I cannot help thinking how much better this piece of trash would have been had the roles been reversed between these two.

Second is the filming - though only in a couple of scenes. The scene where Brendan meets with his agent. This is nicely directed and nicely shot. And there are a couple of drone-cam shots that work well also.

So that's the good bits over...

The story is horrendous. There's a scene where Brendon is talking to the local, walking-talking able-bodied mute paraplegic, harlot at his writing retreat. He informs her he never wanted to write horror he wanted to be more of a Dylan Thomas. He chose horror because it was easy. You take a few situations and put them together and hey-presto. This is how the writer and director (both loose terms here) Steven M Smith cobbled this monstrosity together. Well let me tell you Mr Smith Horror isn't easy but CRAP is, as you have proven here.

The characters and situations are ludicrous and unbelievable. The most realistic thing about this film is... the cottage. I had to think long and hard about that. But even the cottage isn't perfect. Places like these, that are let out to people as holiday homes or getaways, at least have some objet d'art in them. This house is cold and bare and devoid of any atmosphere... oh, was the cottage supposed to be an allegory of this film?

As for the relationships between the village folk and our hero well, strange is a word that comes to mind. For example, one moment he's wary of the roving and raving madman. The next they're knocking back a few in his cottage. No rhyme - No Reason.

This also falls into bad continuity. Which can also be laid squarely at Arthur The Doll's feet... literally. This doll, which is just a person in a wooden mask has a laughable way of moving around. He walks upstairs slowly, He nearly falls over when going around corners. And, when you get a shot down at his feet he does running baby steps. None of which screams walking doll at me. But why does he need to move around when he can magically teleport between reality and the mirror world(?) In one scene he appears in bed in the mirror but he's not in the bed in the room. Then he's in the bed in the room but not in the mirror bed. This carries on for a few cuts to drive our hero mad. However, if he has this wonderful ability why does he need to walk at all?

I will say this for Arthur though, he does like his hammers. He mainly dispatches his opponents by hammering them in the stomach... while they just calmly lay there and let him. But when Arthur transforms into giant Arthur his hammer becomes an iron mallet. Surprising thing is, the claw hammer could kill with a few taps of the hammer side, whereas, the mallet which is thrown full force squarely at our hero's head only knocks him out. The thing should have taken half his skull off.

So if you're still thinking about watching this rubbish then I wish you all the best of luck. This film stole an hour and a half from me. It doesn't have to steal it from you too. If you require a horror fix then feel free to pop over and check out my Absolute Horror List / Chart. You can see where this film ranked and choose something better to view.

This film is so bad I rated it a 1.5 which equates to a 2 on IMDb, but it's not worth a 2... I just can't do it.

If you get this tripe, let us all know please! Why anyone wasted money making this is beyond me. Why I watched it from start to finish is even further beyond me! Curiosity and hope I think. IMDB, will you please introduce a zero rating for garbage like this, better still minus ratings.

My mum bought this film while she in lockdown I came over and watches with him. My god firstly what the hell is the plot about? What is rule one? Secondly the acting is TERRIBLE. and these actors got paid for this dribble. If anything it's a film you laugh at cos it s such crap. Don't bother watching or wasting you money.

Worse movie ever, had to watch it as I'm stubborn and paid £3.45 for it on rakuten #facepalm

They should pay ME to watch it I think !!

But this aint one.

Someone is giving these guys money to make these films so more power to 'um but have some dignity and produce a horror that is just that. The scariest thing about this is the fact I wasted money to watch it.

Smith has a catalogue of these terrible flicks to his credit and he should be ashamed that he does not have the ambition to up his game with the continuous opportunities that he is forever being given.

Avoid any film you see with this filmmakers name attached in twenty different roles

Starts off o.k and I thought/hoped it would improve but it doesn't. The dialogue is difficult to understand when your finding out about why the doll kills people, I still don't know.

Not entirely sure what people have against this film. I thought it was excellent. Well shot, well performed and well edited. I think the haters aren't a big fan of Steven Smith and just want to annoy him with negative reviews. The film works extremely well for a low budget production. People are too critical these days...

Desperate to keep his career going, a writer with an intense case of writer's block takes a friend's advice to visit a remote cottage in the countryside to concentrate on writing, but soon comes across a demented doll that's responsible for a slew of urban legends in the area which puts his life in danger.

This one was a bit better than expected with a lot going for it. Among the better aspects of this one is the obviousness of the setup in getting him out to the area. The meeting that drops the information regarding the need to send him out to the cottage through a fantastic piece of veiled agenda, and with the cryptic meeting with the neighbor hinting at something going on gives this a fine starting point. That goes along nicely with the mysterious antics that take place at the house, from the arrival of the doll to the bizarre treatment of the neighbors who continually warn him about strange rules to follow, setting this one going with a fine atmosphere. That atmosphere is paid off nicely with the actual scenes of the killer doll in action. The initial stalking scenes showing it appearing and viciously killing individuals offer a fine sense of brutality to get an idea of the danger it possesses, yet the psychological mind games it plays are far more impactful. Obviously toying with him to the point of a mental break regarding the various supernatural attacks he unleashes or the whispers of threats he'll perform, this generates enough of a chilling footing to offer up the fun of the final chase through the countryside. This is quite fun with the back-and-forth stalking through the woods which has a big sense of action that has quite a lot to like here. There are some issues to be had with this one. Among the biggest factors here is that, for as short as it is, this one takes quite a while before it gets to the killer doll running amok. For as much as this one hammers home how important following the rules of the doll is, it takes too long before it happens and we get very little in terms of consequences for his actions to speed it along. As well, although there's the final reveal of the cult at the village the whole thing comes off as so heavily foreshadowed that there's no real shock, especially when the whole purpose of the group is never revealed so it's all quite confusing. These issues are what hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

One of the worst movies I have seen in a long time. I won't waste many words on this review, as the poor production, camerawork, sound, and acting in this film does not warrant it. The writing sucks, the acting sucks, the directing sucks. Do you get the idea that this entire ting sucks?

Horror films these days are hit or miss, they're either really good or really bad and unfortunately this one was awful. I only needed to watch 5 minutes of it before I knew it would be terrible. Sadly I did watch the whole thing just to see if it got any better but it never did, the acting is atrocious, the plot makes no sense, the filming and effects were ridiculous. Can't believe I wasted money on it, definitely not worth watching. If I could've rated it minus 10 stars here I would have.

Couldnt watch this beyond 15 minutes. Every actor/actress in that time was the worse I have seen. Good luck if you get past that 15.

Steven M. Smith has does it again - another amazing feat and another amazing horror.

This is a film maker who knows how to make his non-existent budget work for him as another film hits the shelves.

Loads of haters on the reviews, I wouldn't mind seeing the movies they make with the same limitations. Keep them coming.

No. Just no.

While this 2019 movie's cover/poster might actually have some appeal to it - and it was actually why I sat down to watch the movie - you might just actually want to do yourself a favor and skip on this movie from writers Christopher Jolley and Steven M. Smith.

I was lured in by my love of the horror genre, and also because of the movie having an interesting enough cover. Sure, I hadn't even heard about the movie prior to sitting down to watch it now late in 2020. But still, it could be an interesting movie, so of course I watched it.

Turns out that "Doll Cemetery" wasn't an entertaining movie. It was a very bland and mundane movie to be honest. And for a horror movie it was frightfully devoid of anything even remotely scary. It felt like director Steven M. Smith was just wearing velvet gloves, playing it safe and not taking any chances or risks in terms of the storyline or script. And that made for a very boring and slow-paced movie.

The acting in the movie wasn't really noteworthy, but I believe that the actors and actresses were doing their best with the hindrances imposed upon them by the lack of a properly written story and an interesting script.

Visually, then "Doll Cemetery" was just a dud. There was nothing interesting to be seen here, and the concept design of the doll itself was just not working out. It was just too bland.

My rating of "Doll Cemetery" settles on a two out of ten stars. This is not a horror movie that I would recommend you waste your money, time or effort on. If you enjoy horror movies, there are far better and far more entertaining choices readily available out there.

This movie makes me feel a lot of things, and happiness isn't one of them. This has got to be one of the worst pieces of media that I have ever watched, I wanted to bleach my eyes out it was so bad. The acting has got to be some of the worst that I've seen, I mean my DOG can act better than most of these people. I was cringing throughout the whole movie. I mean most of this movie was so badly shot, i wanted to jump off a cliff. Not to mention that some of the shots looked like they were part of a porno, and NOT the good ones either. On the plus side it was funny, in the sense that it was so bad it made me chuckle unfortunately it wasn't a comedy. Please watch this movie and see how bad it is yourself, or don't I don't care what you do. This movie makes me angry btw 😐

This is not a b-class horror movie. This is barely a movie. This is like f-class for failed attempt. Everything here is bad. It's just complete garbage that makes absolutely no sense what so ever.

Went in with suppressed expectations but was pleasantly surprised. This film is creepy, and Jon-Paul Gates' performance really sells the protagonist, especially during the final act of the film! Give it a watch.

An independent feature, clearly a passion for Steven M. Smith, who has a hand in all levels of production, and plays the role of the uncommunicative taxi driver. The story ultimately seems to be inspired by The Wicker Man, but with a manic living doll thrown in.

Brendan Cobbs is a writer suffering from 'the block'. Naturally in a horror film, it is suggested he temporarily relocates to an isolated cottage with no phone or internet - a situation that leaves him vulnerable to the oncoming nastiness.

I quite enjoyed this, although the storyline seems deliberately vague and the dialogue is often filled with apocalyptic dialogue nobody would actually say. Technically, it's very good for a low budget horror, with some creepy cinematographic moments and some good performances; Jon-Paul Gates is good as Brendan, as is Kit Pascoe as The Seductress. 6 out of 10.

Niven's 4th Laws for Writers states: "It is a sin to waste the reader's time." The same law should be made to apply to film-makers (or, rather, "flick-makers" since this does not deserve the appellation "film." Some movies are bad but entertaining, and even have a certain naive charm (Plan 9 from Outer Space, Robot Monster, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Earth vs. The Spider to name a few). This...thing...is not entertaining and offers absolutely, resolutely, no charm. Everyone invoiced should be both ashamed of themselves, prohibited from ever making another flick again, and forced to write letters of apology to all of the victims who watched this abomination.

Please, IMDB, let us vote a "0" score; voting a "1" is a falsehood for scoring something this bad.

A previous reviewer called doll cemetary an amazing horror and dismissed all the film's naysayers as haters before asking how would they fare making a movie with such limited resources? while it is indeed easy to admire director steven m smith's perseverance, the simple fact is that if you are charging the movie going/renting public money for your product ,you best exercise some quality control or rightly suffer the criticism. Sadly like director steven m smiths other efforts, doll cemetary is severely lacking in the quality control department, with its drab direction, limp acting, bad editing and poor script, you'd be hard pressed to find a more dreary way to spend 80 minutes of your life. George romero, john carpenter, sam raimi, john cassavettes,john waters etc etc long ago proved that a low budget doesnt have to result in a low quality product. The only requirements are a basic grip of film making, imagination,inspiration,passion,creativity and an eye of talent. As a huge genre fan, I really wanted to enjoy this movie, why else would you watch a film? but I was sorely disappointed.Dont waste your time.