Black Devil Doll from Hell

Brilliantly sincerely evil and naive. It could be compared to John Waters work in it's disregard for societal racial, drug and sexual taboos even tho I think they were going more for a PUPPET MASTER vibe. The plot is less convoluted than that of PUPPET MASTER (nice lady goes to open air market, buys cute rasta dummy/puppet, takes it home, puppet raises hell, smokes pot, is mean and gives her oral sex.) This movie is worth seeing - if you can find it. The soundtrack is Phillip Glass minimal and the sex scenes with the puppet are shockingly bad/funny. Beyond so bad it's good, so crinchingly terrible it's wonderful. Laugh your way through scenes never intended to be funny while you groove to the fumbled 2 finger synth sound track.

I have been waiting 10 years to see this movie. I first read about it in a Joe Bob Briggs article of the all-time worst B rated movies ever made. This one stuck out because of the nature of the film. The devil doll, the rape, etc. Maybe it was the 10 year wait that made this film seemingly better to me than to most.

The other reviews are mostly correct though. The intro is terrible. The money Chester Turner invested in the opening song could have made the difference. The credits seem never ending, especially since there are only about 10 different people mentioned in a 6 minute period. Shirley Jones is not as dumpy as everyone else has said either. Average, maybe a little less, but thats all.

The sound is really the worst thing about this movie. The Casio keyboard comments are not bullshit either, that's really what it is. Some scenes you can barely here the characters lines beneath the sound of the Casio keyboard playing 4 keys over and over again. The acting was only as good as the dialogue provided. Hard to make good out of a shitty script. The movie would have been so much better with some proper sound editing.

The video is not too choppy for being made with a camcorder. Parts of the rape scene are hard to follow because they cut the video into still shots that slowly progress leading the viewer to believe the VCR is eating your cassette tape. Hang in there, it only last a minute or two.

The plot was good enough though, and it had much potential. The doll, the rape, etc. The puppeteer was phenomenal, and the special effects are way ahead of their time. If this movie was available with closed captions, I would recommend this to anyone. Turn the volume off, and you can't lose.

Unfortunately, this is one of those films that could have been huge just based on the controversy surrounding it, but alas, it is no longer made. It would be a good one for someone to purchase the rights to and re-release it after some heavy media hype.

Unbelievable obscurity from the mid-80s revels in its pornographic and horror inspirations. A church-going lady saving herself for marriage goes shopping at a thrift store and picks up a Jamaican puppet believed to have evil powers. It then proceeds to rape the living bejeezus out of her and turns her into a horn dog, only human meat cannot satiate her newfound hunger for puppet penis. Absurd on every level with pacing that can block a magnum bullet, this has garnered a cult status for all the right reasons. Only a few freeze frame montages show any creativity and deliver the biggest belly laughs, unless you count the disco scene from 1984 with numerous extras shaking their booties to Casio music. Which is the film's other main asset: score. The opening credits droll for a full 6.5 minutes with an accompanying song you'd swear was performed and vocalized by Aaron Stielstra; the rest of the songs coming from a Casio keyboard demonstration (literally) and an unbearable one-note synth drone that sounds like your tape is broken. Remarkably, the puppetry is very competent and I couldn't spot any humans manipulating the Fat Albert-voiced doll. Many, many scenes of erotica and nudity from one of the most unattractive women to grace the screen. The thrift store owner's line reading is hilarious and deserves its own drinking game.

I used to always pass this box at the video store and, after over a year, I decided to rent it. I can't remember when I laughed so damned hard in my life! There are some legitimate comedies that haven't tickled me this much, definitely a "So-Bad-It's-Good" classic. The story concerns one Shirley Black (Shirley L. Jones), a deeply religious woman who stops at a thrift shop and buys a doll that looks a lot like Webster with French braids. The woman running the store tells Shirley that the doll was the property of an East Indian gentleman with strange powers (although the doll has a West Indian hairstyle, but, never mind) and that it always returns to the store under its own power. Hearing that should put anyone off of purchasing the doll, but not our intrepid and spiritual Shirley (so brave and righteous is she that she preaches to men trying to sell her stolen merchandise on the street). She buys it and even tells it "You'll be the only man to see me naked other than my husband" before taking a shower. She then has visions of being attacked by the doll.

Once again, anyone else would be getting rid of the doll at this point. But Shirley hangs on to it. The next day, it jumps out of a closet and knocks her unconscious. It then ties her to the bed and has its way with her before running back to the thrift shop. Shirley is then sent into a downward spiral of sexual degradation as she looks for the thrill that her "little woodenheaded b*****d" has given her with mere mortal men. Let's face it, once you've gotten it on with a doll that looks like a cross between "Lester" of Willie Tyler & Lester fame and Stevie Wonder on the HOTTER THAN JULY album cover, well, no flesh and blood piece will do (Meshach Taylor's line from MANNEQUIN comes to mind: "I would never interrupt you while you were getting a piece of wood."). Other people I know who have seen BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL have also had the same reaction: Utter hilarity! Especially at the Mr. T-sounding voice of the doll ("B----, b----, I said wake up, b----!").

If you're looking for a coherent, competent piece of cinema, you'll be disappointed by THE BLACK DEVIL DOLL. But if you're looking for something in the PLAN 9/ROBOT MONSTER ouevre, by all means, check THIS out. By the way, LOVE that cheesy organ music.

Shot-on-video horror movies are probably the only kind of movies that come close to the depressing look of video pornography. The sheer lack of production values leads the viewer to contemplate whether or not the money that he or she has in their wallet could have funded a better piece of cinema. That said, BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL is just about the shoddiest movie I've ever seen, and that's saying something! I've braved more bad movies than I can even remember, and this one ranks pretty much as one of the three all-time worst pieces of galloping horse crap that I have ever endured. Terrible pacing, an annoying casiotone sound track, execrable acting and a truly pointless story are just some of the many non-highlights.

The only reason to see this is for the unintentionally hilarious rape scene wherein a pious sister of the church is tied down to her bed and given a serious rodgering by an evil, horny ventriloquist's dummy with dreadlocks. The scene where he "orally pleasures" her will forever be burned into my memory, not only because if was silly beyond all human comprehension, but because his tongue looks like a popsicle stick. And, yes, we do get to see his, er...wood. Rent it, and fast forward to this scene. After seeing it, immediately remove the tape from your VCR and use it as a skeet shooting pigeon.