User reviews

This film is very well written, directed, acted and executed. It contains some great humor. It works on multiple levels and has a lot of symbols (if Parigi was Lynch's pupil the master would be proud of him). However the film is very depressing, probably the most depressing I have seen in a while. And I being a big fan of dark comedies, do not get depressed easily.

I left the film in a very bad mood, a dire need of a strong drink and desire to see a silly comedy, action, romance - anything to get rid of the aftertaste...

I would recommend it to an emotionally stable connoisseur, though...

This movie goes into a little visited horror neighborhood: the realm of the creepy living mannequin. Up to this point, the best examples of this type of thriller would be Woody from "Fear" and "Pin" but Robert Parigi manages to deliver a more complex story than either of those films.

This creepy flick has a wonderfully depraved sensibility and seems to be marching to the tune of Roman Polanski's "Repulsion". Acting is solid throughout, and even Rip Torn seems restrained from his normal cartoonish antics. Rather than going for jump scares, this movie goes for a slow build of dread and suspense. There are a couple of good cringes in the movie, and it's definitely worth a watch.

Love Object is a truly unique piece of horror. It's an unsettling film about a lonely guy who takes an unnatural liking to a "real doll." It's basically an ultra-realistic blow up doll...and very creepy I might add. But, when Kenneth falls in love with the new girl at work the doll does not take the news so well. I really don't want to go into the plot details here because the movie is kind of a slow burn that only works once (I've went back and watched it again and it's just not as interesting the second time). The ending is still fantastic though. What makes it work so well are the performances of Desmond Harrington and Melissa Sagemiller. Harrington is one brave actor; not at all afraid to just go for it. I can't imagine too many actors tackling this role. And Sagemiller is really putting herself out there as well. Rip Torn and Udo Kier put in some fun character work too. I recommend viewing Love Object at least once to see there are still good movies being made that don't get a wide theatrical release. A word of warning to the director though: people HATE alarm clocks and the sound that they make. I take away some points for the use of alarm clocks.

Oh, Kenneth, Kenneth, Kenneth (Desmond Harrington). What a loser. Hiding in the closet to listen to your neighbor have sex when the new girl (Melissa Sagemiller) is just as lonely as you. Step up there, boy, and get some action.

Kenneth decides to try something different. A $10,000 plastic doll. Yep, they are real (On sale at http://ultradolls.com/).

Kenneth's relationship with the doll reflects his real feeling for Lisa (Sagemiller), and soon he has enough nerve to make a move. But, as things progress with Lisa, he starts imagining that his doll is jealous and, after a bad night with Lisa, he takes a drastic and horrible step.

This is when things gets really weird, and exciting at the same time. He snaps completely and just when we think he is toast, he manages to have heaven intervene and save him. I can't say more than that without giving away the plot, but it certainly was well done.

Rip Torn was great as his boss, and Udo Kier played an excellent role.

Looking for more from first time writer/director Robert Parigi.

Love object is an above average horror thriller and although I'm quite sure it's not destined to become a horror classic. It does fall into the catagory with some of the new impressive horror classics such as May, Session 9, etc. Sexy Desmond Harrington of Wrong Turn fame stars as a young man whom decides to order a life like sex doll named Nikki. After getting a crush on a fellow co-worker played by the usually horrid Mellisa Sagemiller of Soul Survivors taking her performance skills a step up and becoming a real actress. All is fine and dandy as he practices out on the love doll what he plans to do with Sagemiller. But things go horrifically wrong when the doll begins to show it's jealous side supposedly. Or at least he feels that way and it wants to lash out at the young woman. Harrington does a fine job stretching his acting chops as you completely identify and feel for his charachter while being equally appaled by his actions at the same time. The film takes it's concept with a twisted humourous realism that left people laughing for the first half and than cringing in a bsolute fear as the film settled into it's unpredictable and disturbing final act. Kudos to all involved with this long dormant progect. The director does a fine job executing his concepts and directing the film suspensefully. However in the end it needed a bit of fine tuning and although the body count and blood letting is low I can't help that it showed a little too much and things changed a bit too drasticlaly too fast to make it totally believable. All in all theres no way to give the film more praise than to say that it makes it a hard case to fall for this 'love object'. although the film is definatly memorable and thought provoking, it's those kinds of thoughts I'd rather have not eneter my mind.

Kenneth (Desmond Harrington) works as a technical writer--he creates user's manuals. He's good at his job but he has trouble emotionally connecting with others. At about the same time that Kenneth's boss, Novak (Rip Torn), hires an attractive temp assistant for him, Lisa (Melissa Sagemiller), Kenneth becomes obsessed with a lifelike sex doll named "Nikki". He gradually makes the doll appear as close as he can to Lisa. But when Lisa begins showing interest in him, it leads to complications and possibly disastrous consequences.

Writer/director Robert Parigi's Love Object is an exploration of various kinds of objectification, but in the wrapper of a psychological thriller/horror film. Although it is sourced in an actual object called "The Real Doll" (an expensive, life-like sex doll available via mail order/on the Internet), and it has filmic thematic precursors, from the good (Private Parts, 1972) to the not so good (Der Mann nebenan, aka A Demon in My View, 1991), as well as attitudinal/emotional precursors, ranging from Psycho (1960) to Boxing Helena (1993) to Office Space (1999), Parigi is much more tightly focused on objectification, not only when it comes to sex, but also as it imbues working life and to a small extent, private life, as well.

The first half hour of the film shows us Kenneth at his job. The office is bland and conformist, with white-collar employees sitting in similar cubicles as they crank out their soul-squelching work and desperately try to find anything to provide a spark of color or entertainment and help them get through their days. We can tell that Kenneth has been at it for a while, because he has the blankest look on his face. Parigi is showing us how this kind of work objectifies employees. They're just cogs in a wheel, alienated and alienating, chipping away at mostly meaningless crap, existing only insofar as they continue to feed the right objects to their fellow workers and the administrative machinery. (Can you tell I've worked one of those jobs before?) Once Lisa arrives, she's objectified as a tool to help production, only useful and existent as long as she fulfills that function. When she puts a kink into it by having an emotional outburst, she's threatened with exile. Emotions aren't allowed.

So it's no surprise, being socialized into such a work environment, that Kenneth fetishizes a literal object, "Nikki", which he often relates to via a user's manual on his computer. And it's no surprise that he transfers that conceptualization to Lisa. As the film progresses, Kenneth tries to make Lisa and Nikki more alike, sometimes working on one, sometimes the other. Long before they begin to unify, Kenneth shows signs that his alienation is leading to a loss of his rational faculties. He begins to believe that Nikki is alive, interacting with him and eventually threatening him. He later begins to conflate Lisa and Nikki while he's with Lisa. Obviously, this is a recipe for disaster, and what a delicious disaster Parigi gives us in the final section of the film.

Although relatively slow in the beginning, the pacing and suspense gradually intensify until the climax. The change is appropriate, as the film takes place during Kenneth's break with sanity. It's only slight quirks at the beginning, but by the end he's a full-blown psycho. That's not something that happens in the blink of an eye.

Parigi also works his theme of objectification into the residents of the apartment where Kenneth dwells. Even though they live together, sometimes right next door to each other, they think of one another more as functions. One person is the manager, another the cop. Kenneth, known as the "degenerate" to the cop, watches the manager (Udo Kier) fondling a woman in the hall, objectifying them as porno material (and there are also later scenes in a porno shop, a locale where objectification has long been an issue). The manager is shown at one point playing with dolls of his own--small porcelain figurines that he makes dance a waltz.

Of course, one need not think about these issues much to enjoy the film. Parigi has done a remarkable job making an independent, low budget artwork. It was shot on Super 16 and looks great. The production design is excellent (a real standout is when Kenneth is awarded an office of his own), and Parigi's direction is impeccable. You can easily enjoy the film from the thriller/horror aspect alone. On that end, the film is full of increasing tension, it's occasionally and effectively visceral, and it has a nicely surprising ending. Don't miss this one.

Love Object received an incognito release a few years back, and this is unfortunate as what we have here is a film that takes a very basic idea (albeit one that I've not seen used before) and crafts and inventive and somewhat frightening little film out of it. The only film really similar to this that I can think of is Lucky McKee's oddball gem 'May', which seems to be gaining more and more fans all the time; and this makes Love Object's releasing all the more unfortunate, as this is a film that could definitely win itself a dedicated cult following. The film focuses on Kenneth Winslow - he's an everyday guy with an everyday sort of job at a place that prints instruction manuals. His life takes a turn one day when his co-workers introduce him to Nikki - a lifelike doll on sale on the internet for a whopping $10,000. He decides to buy the doll, and after becoming acquainted with it - quickly falls in love. However, he's also starting to get on with his lovely female co-worker...and this 'upsets' his $10,000 plastic love object, leading to the emergence of a strange love triangle.

Going into this film; I was worried that the plot might not be able to stretch the running time - but there's enough else going on to ensure that Love Object doesn't become boring. The production values are high considering that this obviously wasn't a big budget film, and the acting is also rather good. The central performance is delivered by a shy looking Desmond Harrington, and he has good chemistry with his female co-star, Melissa Sagemiller. To the cult fan, however, the most interesting performance in the movie comes from Udo Kier - and while he's not really given the opportunity to make a big mark on the film, it's always good to see him. Rip Torn also plays a part, and along with Kier; makes the movie more memorable. Director Robert Parigi gets the audience into the film because the people in it are largely very realistic; the leads aren't overly good/bad looking and they don't have unlikely jobs, so the film is easy to get on with for normal people who have never spent any time with a sex doll. The film seems like it should have a point...but if there is one, I couldn't detect it. "Don't have sex with a rubber doll" is about the best I can do on that front. However, the film is interesting throughout and ends with a good twist...so Love Object definitely comes recommended.

"Love Object" draws its inspiration from two well-known sources, one a literary classic, the other a classic of twentieth century pop culture: first, the Greek myth "Pygmalion," in which a sculptor carves "the perfect woman" out of stone only to discover that it isn't all that easy to love an inanimate object that can't love you back; and, second, the "Twilight Zone" episode entitled "Living Doll," with Telly Savalas as an abusive stepfather who is haunted and eventually done in by a little girl's Talky Tina doll, whose anthropomorphic capabilities go far beyond mere conversation.

In "Love Object," Kenneth is a psychopathic loner who orders a customized, anatomically correct companion named Nikki off the internet. When the shy, introverted young man falls for Lisa, a pretty blond co-worker, he begins to project all of the unsuspecting girl's qualities and traits onto the doll, treating Nikki as if she were Lisa and Lisa as if she were Nikki. Eventually he gets the two so completely mixed up in his head that it seems as if the mannequin herself, driven by paranoia and jealousy, is beginning to act out her anger in fits of potentially homicidal rage.

As twisted low budget horror films go, "Love Object" works fairly well for the first hour or so, even though it feels as if we have seen this basic storyline a few too many times before (often with a ventriloquist's dummy as the nemesis). In addition to the creepy atmosphere, writer/director Robert Parigi provides a few highly effective moments of dark humor to keep us unnerved and off balance. Unfortunately - as is the wont of so many horror movies these days - the film's tone turns so ugly and sadistic in the final half hour that the movie loses us completely and we find ourselves simply wishing that the whole bloody ordeal would get over as quickly as possible. More's the pity, since Desmond Harrington delivers an effectively understated account of a man teetering on the brink of insanity, while Melissa Sagemiller is warm and winning as the flesh-and-blood dream girl who becomes, first, his love interest and, later, his victim. Rip Torn provides some subtle humor as the boss more concerned with workplace propriety and avoiding sexual harassment lawsuits than with cultivating a case of young love blossoming in his very own office.

The movie also does an effective job making the case that the modern corporate world sees its workers more as dispensable automatons and robots - or dolls, if you prefer - than valued human beings. What a shame that the movie undercuts all its various virtues in the end by going whole hog over-the-top. Where's Rod Serling when we need him?

I saw this movie at its New York premier at the TriBeCa FIlm Festival, and I have inserted the description of the movie from the festival's website:

"Insecure technical writer Kenneth (Desmond Harrington) learns so much about women from his silicone sex doll Nikki, whom he ordered over the Internet, that he gets noticed by flesh-and-blood co-worker Lisa (Melissa Sagemiller). It seems like the start of a beautiful thing, but first he must throw off the guilt with which Nikki is invading his subconscious. Parigi's bizarre love triangle examines the horrors of relationships and the changing nature of love in modern times with inspired creepiness."

Based on this description, I eagerly expected to see an intelligent and mature story about a man's journey into alternative sexual identities and how he adapts to them. And for the first 2/3 of this movie we see excellent acting by Harrington and Sagemiller, and some fine cameos by Rip Torn. This portion of the movie is a quirky black comedy about budding romance. The portrayal of the "RealDoll" which has been shown on HBO's Real Sex and The Howard Stern Show was both surreal and delightfully bizarre.

Then comes the last 1/3 of the movie, which inexplicably turns into a murderous gore-fest which inspired much of the audience to exit the theater. I should have joined them. Perhaps the film festival organizers dropped the ball in how they advertised this movie, but the filmakers dropped the ball by turning what was an intelligent dark romantic comedy into a cheap idiotic slasher flick.

One other thing, I'm sick and tired of movies that portray anyone who engages in consensual alternative sex as either a serial killer or a victim of a serial killer.

Despite the disappointing final act, I must say that both Harrington and Sagemiller should become superstars, and truly dominated the screen. Hopefully, they will be shown in roles which truly merit their talent.

In Los Angeles, the loneliness and efficient technical writer Kenneth Winslow (Desmond Harrington) is challenged to write three long technical manuals in a very short period. His boss Novak (Rip Torn) assigns the temporary typist Lisa Bellmer (Melissa Sagemiller) to help him in the task. In the office, Kenneth's colleagues show him an expensive rubber sex doll called "Nikki" in Internet, and Kenneth decides to buy it. When Nikki is delivered, the snoopy manager of his building becomes curious with the huge package. Kenneth reads Nikki's manual and uses the image of Lisa to give a sort of "personality" to the doll and he starts practicing kink sex and becomes obsessed with Nikki. Meanwhile, Lisa feels out of place in the office, Kenneth helps her and they get close to each other, having a love affair and the disturbed Kenneth gets rid off the doll. When Lisa finds Nikki's brochure in the volume one of the manual, the world of the twisted Kenneth falls apart and Kenneth becomes completely deranged with tragic consequences.

"Love Object" is an excellent weird tale of loneliness, obsession and horror, with a great screenplay and direction and a potential cult-movie. The dark story has a touch of David Lynch inclusive with some bizarre characters, like Kenneth and the owner of the sex shop. Desmond Harrington has a stunning performance developing perfectly his deranged and scary character. The extremely gorgeous Melissa Sagemiller is also great in the role of the insecure temporary employee that feels uncomfortable in the company with her colleagues. The surprising conclusion is a plus in this highly recommended movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Olhos da Morte" ("Eyes of the Death")

This movie ranks down there with the worst. The shame of it all is the premise is a great idea. Desmond Harrington's acting is really good at portrays the socially inept Kenneth. I think what bothers me the most is that in today's techno/cyber world; people often come to believe non-truths in order to keep themselves from dealing with what's real. If they get to a point when they have the confidence to "step out" into reality, they can't deal with it. Now, that's a sad social commentary on today's society. It seems like there where hints of American Psycho meet Dead Mate (in that the objects of their affections aren't alive). I would suggest a much better film, PIN, unless of course you are merely seeing this film for the ordinary Melissa Sagemiller. She was an okay actress just not an overwhelming beauty worthy of affection. What was with the whacko birthmarks and deformities with the love-lusted?

My skepticism was expecting a gender reversal of Child's Play.

After seeing the flick it struck me as somewhere near the realm of Secretary, ReAnimator & American Psycho. It throws a humorous light on professional / emotional duality & the creepy perversions generated by repressed emotions.

Shot in 18 days & under a million $ this film is an excellent example of how a quality story, well executed, can easily be more entertaining than a star studded formulaic attempt at a blockbuster for a fraction of the cost. Film studios could make & market hundreds of films like this for the cost of a single Waterworld or Matrix Sequel. Introducing a fresh crowd of talent to the public & a higher grade of story to bored audiences.

A visually tasteful & cleverly executed film.

I thought I'd have nothing to say about this film. I bought it for some reason almost 15 years ago and never got around to watching it until now. I was expecting some manner of psychological horror and that's almost what I got for the first ten minutes or so.

As it went on, it started to take on a much goofier, weirder tone, evoking all the sorts of extremely low budget cringe-inducing goofiness of something like "The Room", except that unlike The Room, this film apparently was trying to be funny? At least that's what some of the reviews are strongly suggesting.

There's nothing funny about this movie. The only things even remotely humorous about the film are Udo Kier and the fact that the $10,750 sex doll Kenneth orders looks like it was made out of cloth or papier mâché.

All of which lead to a really ugly ending that put me in a really bad mood and really topped off a dull film with a bad ending just to make it regrettable instead of forgettable.