With the exclusion of Chucky, I've always found tales revolving around creepy possessed/supernatural dolls to be quite scary, be it in text or on the screen. Dead Silence by James Wan (the Wan and only) is one of my favorites and the famous namesake of Anabelle was in my opinion the best and most horrifying feature of the film. Therefore, after the Netflix buzz around the new Sabrina film, I was quite excited that the first two titles were also available, so I could watch them in proper order.
The vast majority of features in The Doll are truly great. The story is interesting, compelling and suspenseful. The pace is right on the spot from the exposition and build up, through the overture and to excellent final plot twist (which succeeded in catching me completely off guard despite it being rather cliché). The antagonist is terrifying despite rather sloppy CGI (which is only apparent enough to be noticeable during the final scenes). The scenes are well made and compelling. The characters are authentic, realistic and relatable and the acting is professional and on the spot despite being less than impressive. Even the soundtrack is awesome.
On the other hand, I couldn't ignore the less enjoyable features, especially the vast amounts of all too familiar clichés, some of which had been specifically taken from the "The Conjuring" anthology. Additionally, there's the exaggerated use of cheap jump scares, despite the fact that they were well executed and absolutely achieved their goal of making me jump in my seat. Also, I personally found the gory parts to be completely unnecessary, not being a fan of gore and excessive amounts of blood for their own sakes. Some films are based on those features and are made specifically for fans of gore, but this one isn't and has absolutely no reason to attempt to be. However, the worst feature of the film is by far the complete lack of logic and realism in some of the scenes, all for the sake of fitting the plot. Like a guy suffering multiple deadly stab wounds only to shake it off when necessary, then collapsing exhausted when the plot needs him to. A very amateurish feature in a film that's otherwise anything but.
All in all, The Doll is an excellent film which for me delivered everything I hoped it would, and then some. While not a masterpiece it's good enough to be considered great and one of the best Horror films I've watched this year (and by far the best Indonesian Horror film I've watched to date, though I haven't watched that many). I can only hope the next two titles of the trilogy are as entertaining and terrifying.
