Welcome to the Annual February Shortening! In honor of the shortest month on a blog written by a short woman, all posts are devoted to stories about vertically challenged villains. If you, reader of any height, have your own mini-horror to share, do so in the comments and I'll include you in a final post roundup as the calendar changes!
With over 15 years of writing this blog and many more living as a human being with particular tastes, it gets harder and harder to find killer doll movies that I haven't seen. We've reached a point where there has to be a little elasticity to the very DEFINITION of "killer doll", hence today's tale of terror featuring a villainous paperweight.
Quick Plot: A stuffy history professor is lecturing his bored (and excessively rude) class about the Aztecs. Annoyed at their dismissal of his slides, he summons some kind of magic from an image of a wooden idol of the demon Destacatyl to give his student a nosebleed. Nobody seems to care other than Francis, a wealthy man who's never introduced but clearly knows the power of this figurine, so much so that after the professor is impaled by supernatural happenings in his own classroom, Francis heads to Mexico to find the real piece.
It's there, but under protection. An old man guards it but assigns the actual safety of Destacatyl to a young, incorruptible boy. Both are, unfortunately, extremely susceptible to bullets, though Francis doesn't quite get what he was hoping for.
Suddenly, we're whiplashed back to the States where a trio of high school students led by I-WANT-TO-BELIEVE Julie are having a casual seance. Teen Tommy now has Destacatyl, a never-explained souvenir from his parents' recent vacation. Some ouija board drama scares the kids away, but evil lingers: a security guard pays the price with his head.
Cut AGAIN to YET ANOTHER set of characters: Sandy, a lead reporter for a Weekly World News-ish tabloid and her rather obnoxiously aimless pal Jerry. Sandy gets the byline for the story reporting the security guard's death, which leads Julie to beg her for a followup, which Jerry grabs with far too much enthusiasm.
Got all that? The Power, as you might have guessed, doesn't quite seem to know how to tell its own story. Eventually, Jerry falls victim to Destacatyl's whims, shoving women down garbage disposals and mutating into a rubbery monster. It's up to Sandy and Julie to defeat Destacatyl and break his hold.
Written and directed by the team of Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow (who went on to make the better known The Kindred), The Power feels like it's missing about five scenes...while also feeling a good half hour too long. There are plot points and characters that simply don't connect. You can forgive a lot of horror movies (particular ones with zanier concepts) a lot of that, but when we're five minutes in and already confused about how an ancient idol has switched hands five times only to land in a suburban high school, it's a bit distracting.
All that being said, I still had fun with The Power, mostly due to its own cheap early '80s charm. While it doesn't give us many surprises, it also feels refreshingly original (maybe because of its own narrative messiness). I don't quite know what to make of it, which is something I rarely get to say.
High Points
I found myself enjoying the score throughout The Power, only to discover why once I followed some IMDB trails: composer Christopher Young has had an incredibly prolific career, particularly in the horror genre. Credits include Sinister, Copycat, Flowers In the Attic, Wonder Boys, Tales From the Hood, and the original theme for Hellraiser (which means the poor man has his name on several sequels)
Low Points
I'm comfortable enough with my level of intelligence to know that when a low budget '80s horror movie is this confusing, it's not my fault
Lessons Learned
When you have unlimited supernatural power, you can be anything you want (including a small town librarian)
The best descriptive word for "a lot" is "legions"
Thinking a cursed idol is a Mexican salt shaker is a common reaction among the ignorant
Rent/Bury/Buy
Now streaming on Tubi, The Power is worth any horror completist's time. It doesn't do anything particularly new (or well), but it just feels a little different in its storytelling. Give it a go when you're craving some confusing plotting and practical effects.