I remember watching this film at a young age and found the movie terrifying. It was my first doll/dummy movie and from then on I definitely needed a night light. The dummy creeps me out even to this day. For the longest time I would have reoccurring dreams of the doll. I could not have a closet open because I thought the dummy would be in there, just staring at me. Even when I had stuffed animals or toys in my closet I felt like they were staring at me.As I grew older, I laugh at the Chucky doll and never found him all that creepy, but the dummy from Joey definitely still gives me the creeps. I even recently watched the film 'Magic' and found that just as creepy. The doll from Dead Silence is the next big scary thing for me now. I just hope they keep coming with these.

Director Roland Emmerich is nowadays best known as the man behind blockbusters such as "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow", big budget science-fiction films where he has shown a mastery for the use of grandiose and awe-inspiring visual effects. While he may not be the most original and artistic director, Emmerich has truly developed a style of his own, a style that owes a lot to his spiritual guides, the great 80s masters of fantasy, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg; and as this little early film named "Joey" proves, it's a style that Emmerich has been developing since the early years of his career, back when he was a young director in his natal Germany, many years before his first big hit, "Universal Soldier"."Joey", known in the U.S. as "Making Contact", is the story of a 9 years old kid named Joey (Joshua Morrell), who after the tragic death of his father, begins to experience psychic powers allowing him to move inanimate objects with his mind, set things on fire and even to communicate him with his dead father. However, not everything is good for Joey as his newly gained powers accidentally awake an evil supernatural force that is contained inside the body of an old ventriloquist's dummy that Joey found in an abandoned house. The supernatural Dummy shows similar powers to Joey's, and soon he puts the lives of everyone near Joey in danger as the evil Dummy has dark plans for Joey's special powers.Written by Emmerich himself, along with Hans J. Haller and Thomas Lechner, "Joey" is pretty much a supernatural horror movie on the lines of Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg's "Poltergeist", but done with the approach of a fantasy movie for children (like "E.T.", also by Spielberg). The premise is very original, but sadly the script's development is quite typical of its time, although to be fair with it, the German version of the film (that runs 20 minutes longer) is a slight but noticeable improvement over the dubbed U.S. version. Focused on Joey, the film works more as a creepy adventure film than a horror movie, mainly because the story is written in a way that highlights the main character's fight versus the evil force instead of the horror created by the Dummy. While the movie focuses on the action and adventure, this is not to say the film doesn't have good creepy moments, as it is packed with some very good (for the budget) visual dark imagery that forecasts Emmerich's taste for big budget special effects. It's really interesting what he does with his minimal resources, and one can say that at this early point in his career he knew the kind of films he wanted to do in the future. As with the script, the German uncut version allows a better picture of Emmerich's direction, that while not really masterful, it's competent and effective for the kind of movie he was trying to make. The similitude with "E.T." and "Poltergeist" is not gratuitous, as nods to both Spielberg and Lucas are very common in the film; this just shows how much the young German director admired his heroes.The cast is really average, and this is really one of the film's weakest points, as the lack of experience of the cast (specially of the kids) becomes increasingly notorious given the fact that the director was at this point unexperienced as well (and being honest, directing actors has never been Emmerich's strongest characteristic). Anyways, Eva Kryll is the only actress with real experience, and as such delivers the best performance of the film, although her character is really small and doesn't really have enough screen time. Also, I guess one can say that the casting of Joshua Morrell was truly inspired, as the young actor really looked natural in front of the camera.As written above, the unexperienced young cast paired with the unexperienced young director is likely a deadly combination for any film, and "Joey" has this as its biggest flaw. However, Emmerich manages to pull off a nice entertaining adventure of this that while not perfect, is a lot better than what could had been. The script isn't really amazing, and at times shows up some serious plot holes, but nothing really to worry about. "Joey" was intended to be a children's horror movie, and in that aspect it succeeds, as this movie is the perfect introduction to the horror genre for young children.I can not recommend this movie to everyone, as definitely it won't be attractive to the average horror fan, but I'm sure the kids will enjoy it a lot more, as the movie has a nice mix of horror, adventure and comedy. "Joey", like Emmerich's other early films ("The Noah's Ark Principle" and "Moon 44"), shows the young talent of a visionary master of visual effects, that while probably not a very accomplished director, manages to make entertaining and attractive films that deliver good doses of entertainment. "Joey", or "Making Contact", is definitely one of the best horrors to enjoy with the kids, although it doesn't really offer something for the grown-up crowd. 6/10

at the time this film was made, it was cool for us "military brats." one of our own was in this film (actually, two). but anyway, i went to school on a military base in Stuttgart,Germany with josh morrell and ray kaselonis. my group of friends thought we were so cool because we went to see the movie in German (actually, it was pretty amazing that a bunch of middle school kids could actually understand what they were saying in German). it is nostalgic to see this again but can't believe how dorky it is! nevertheless, this film is a piece of our heritage as military brats at robinson barracks. it would be nice to know where these guys are now...

My girlfriend has a large VHS library she's trying to convert to DVD, but there are some films she's going to have a hard time finding, especially this one. Without looking at the box I was able to watch this movie and pinpoint the year of its release (The E.T. glass, the R.O.T.J. bed sheets and especially the teacher's Velcro shoes were dead giveaways to the production date). Fletcher was a good moment to reminisce about the official Lester dummy I used to have. I found out the hard way my girlfriend is deathly afraid of ventriloquist dummies. This movie was not among her faves when she was a kid because of this. My only complaints about the movie was a flub early in the movie, when Joey is picking up his backpack and you can clearly see the name "Josh" written on the baseball patch on the bag. Then there's the little black boy who conveniently disappears when the fit hits the shan only to turn up for the movie's lackluster finale. Smart move, kid. All in all, a decent movie for its time, but it's no Mac and Me, and that's saying a lot.