First off, let me tell you that I can not compare this to earlier works of Mr. Brand, because I do not have them clearly in mind right now (and I haven't seen all his movies either). What I can say though, is that this movie is pretty decent. Especially if you consider the title and it's theme/story.It's not breakout great or anything but it is entertaining enough for a small budget movie. The actors are decent considering the material and the movie does not deteriorate into complete camp and absurdity (which you might find to be a bad thing, I guess). Low budget horror and nice effects (though most is off camera) works in favor of this movie.
... View MoreAs another reviewer has suggested, it's not worth wasting too much time telling you "this movie sucks". What do you need to know? Cheap, unconvincing sets. Perfunctory acting. Barely coherent plot full of red herrings and non sequiturs. Doesn't last a minute longer than the minimum they can get away with.This is what? A women's prison? And they have not cells, but dormitories? Through which the male warders stroll while the girls lounge on their beds in their underwear? Even the notoriously cheap Australian soap, Prisoner Cell Block H, had a go at cells, even if the cardboard walls did wobble when people bumped into them.But what's the point complaining? It's a Charles Band film. That tells you everything you need to know.Almost everything, but there are still a couple of points worth making. It may be bad, like all Band Full Moon productions, but it's still nowhere near as mind-sappingly awful as something from The Asylum Team. I'm not sure why, but I think it may be because there still survives a sense that someone is trying to entertain you by telling a story, whereas in Asylum mockbusters the cynical and exploitative contempt for the audience has long overshadowed any vestigial vision or artistic purpose.And there's at least one good scene in it. Well, not good, necessarily, but promising. Eva (Jessica Morris, who, fair dos, actually has a creditable go at making something of her part) is being disciplined by the sadistic (natch) warden/matron (Deb Snyder). So as not to leave any incriminating evidence, the warden produces an old electric shock machine, a wonderfully hokey piece of equipment seemingly stolen from the laboratory of Dr. Frankenstein, full of unnecessary coils and valves. As the warden administers increasingly violent shocks, Eva first laughs ("ooh! - that tickles") then shouts out her defiance and contempt ("you're going to have to do better than that!"). There's a genuine, exhilarating demonic power to all this. If only the scene was properly resolved, instead of cutting away and then returning later to a tableau of the aftermath.And that's what's so frustrating about cheap films like this. With just a little bit of effort, a little bit of care and attention to detail, that spark of creativity could have been fanned into something worthwhile. Not great, necessarily, but challenging, provocative, or even bitterly funny. At the end of the day, it's not the cheap sets or Ed Wood special effects or amateur acting that does for films like this. They actually don't matter; you only notice them because for so much of the time there's nothing else to notice. No, what does for these films is the laziness, the negligence, the numbing lack of ambition. It's the script and plot that lets them down, and they cost next to nothing. Just spend a bit of time thinking through those plot strands, and find a resolution that ties them together. Dialogue rusty? Get a second pair of ears to work through it. Concentrate on a couple of key sequences (in this film, that'll be the electric shock machine, and the waste disposal unit) and take a bit of time and care getting them right.But that's the film that might have been. This one, I'm afraid, is not worth wasting your time or money on. Well, probably not. I got my copy from a pound shop. That's a British recession-driven thrift store: everything a pound or less (about a dollar fifty). At that price, I'm not really angry. It gave me a wry smile or two, and added to my knowledge and understanding of Z-grade horror films. But don't pay a penny more.
... View MoreI was actually kind of excited about this movie, it had an interesting plot idea, and sounded pretty original. And at the same time, it kept the whole "Full Moon Killer Dolls" theme going. Even the trailer made it look pretty decent, with an obvious homage to From Beyond. However, the movie moves extremely slow, and is often uninteresting. There is a severe lack of gore, and not much comedy. And a movie like Full Moon should be funny, because you know it is not going to be a genius film. The acting is okay, not awful, not very good. The characters did not seem most likable to me, therefore I didn't really care if anyone died or not. However, the ending is kind of cool. It's just too bad, this movie had some good ideas, but lack of action and good characters make it only okay. Hey, it was better than Petrified.
... View MoreEvery since Full Moon Pictures left Paramount Studios in the late nineties, they haven't been near as good as they used to be. I don't know what will become of the studio in years to come, but this movie is the last straw for me and I'm going to give up on them.Hell, even the title is inaccurate: only one Worry Doll does anything, and even then we barely see it. A more appropriate title would've been "Woman possessed by Dangerous Worry Doll".There's nothing special here: a not-too-bad girl in a women's correctional facility? Check. A group of bitches who control everything and are despicable? Check. A warden who lets her personal dislike of our heroine cloud her judgment and lets the really bad girls get away with doing bad things? Check. A guard who's mean and sadistic and one who's nice, a little girl who's more plot device than a character and inmates who there just to make it looks like a real prison? Check, check, check! If it weren't for the doll and its effect on Eva, this would be your standard woman in prison movie that was played out years ago.The one bright spot is that after she'd possessed, Eva becomes more upbeat and fun to watch. And her tormentors are so unlikable that you'll want to help her kill them. The problem is, we don't get to see the actual deaths, which are simply implied. And I never I'd thought see the day Full Moon wouldn't show a violent death.Still, this a step backwards for Full Moon for reclaiming their former glory. And it's far, far too late to go back.
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