Directed By Rod Blackhurst

Starring – Fabianne Therese, Seann William Scott, Ethan Suplee

The Plot – Macy (Therese), a young woman, is abducted by a monstrous figure intent on raising her as their own child.

Rated R for strong violence, gore, grisly images, adult language and some nudity.

DOLLY | Official Trailer | Independent Film Company & Shudder

POSITIVES

An oversaturation of horror in recent years has made it difficult for the genre’s newest installments to blaze a trail of its own twisted originality, especially those confined to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre outline of their creativity, and while Dolly certainly fits comfortably into this aforementioned category, in everything from the lived-in traits of its masked psychopathic killer, to the familiarity of its setting and structure, there are some creepy components to the movie’s execution that faithfully kept my attention throughout an effortless 77-minute runtime, helping to override the detracting hinderances of a featherweight script that nearly sinks its efforts. For starters, Rod Blackhurst definitely feels like a student of the game with this particular genre, utilizing compelling technical components like 16mm film and absorbing sound designs to paint a damply tense and inescapable influence to the dread and dominance of this killer within isolated homefield setting, with grittily grainy imagery and handheld photography that feel like we’ve stumbled upon a snuff film, with just as much violence and minimized dialogue to echo such a sentiment. Unfortunately, while most of Blackhurst’s direction feels restrained during the first half of the movie, it truly feels like he comes to life during the movie’s climax, where not only does he open up his artistry to illustrate the anxiety that resides within Macy’s helplessness to escape, featuring some entrancing first-character perspectives and lucidly sleek background flourishes to drown the audience in uncertainty, but also finally indulges in more of the expansion of the world-building with blink and you might miss it dialogue that conveys the magnitude of the killer’s devastation, clueing us into greater and grander examples of this possibly becoming a series, with limitless potential in the experimental sides of Blackhurst’s cinematic captivity. The artistry also lends itself to a multitude of carnage candy that film serves up as abrupt resolutions to Dolly’s periodic conflicts, featuring some gruesomely gnarly practical effects work so viscerally appalling that they even drown out the occasional C.G blood deposit. One such example pertains to the hanging jawbone of one unfortunate victim, where Blackhurst’s faithful persistence on the depiction turns the stomachs of the audience the longer this character is forced to endure such an unfortunate fate, and between it and other lacerations or decapitations, the film effectively illustrates the impressive strength and resiliency of this shovel-wielding maniac possibly becoming the next big horror icon in a genre constantly thirsty for it, complimented even further by such an originally unique appearance that is every bit creepy as it is hilariously awkward whenever Dolly dances with devilish delight at one of her impactful slices or contortions. If this isn’t enough, the performances from this minimal ensemble also commit themselves to endless levels of manic absurdity that transpires throughout the engagement, particularly Fabianne Therese, a disappearing Ethan Suplee, and of course the brilliant levels of physical acting from pro wrestler, Max the Impaler as the titular antagonist. For Therese, there’s a subtle psychological transformation that frantically bears the weight of the anguish and tragedy that befalls the character, made all the more believable by the expressive eyes of the actress conveying the magnitude of her disparaging situation, but for Max, she’s restrained to bodily contorting, sagging, and heavy breathing, in order to give off an internalized suffering and unstable duress that makes her feel like a prisoner of her own thirst for violent outpouring, and considering the acting of masked maniacs is often overlooked and undervalued in movies like these, I wholeheartedly feel like she deserves a lot of the credit for making something so visually ridiculous feel maniacally menacing, as a result of her commitment to craft, proving the ages old sentiment that wrestlers make some of the best actors, if given the right material and direction.

NEGATIVES

While Dolly does have plenty going for it stylistically and violently to hook a hardcore audience, I truly feel like those requiring storytelling substance in movies like these will constantly have their patience tested in a surface level screenplay and frustrating structure that never quite makes the most of its bountiful potential, resulting in a heavily flawed experience that feels like it takes one step forward and two steps back with its overall execution. For starters, Dolly is the latest film to adopt a pointlessly unnecessary chaptered structure to its storytelling, where these frequent interruptions on scenes growing tensely riveting are abruptly halted to give visual cues at the next section of the story, and while this gimmick doesn’t add anything uniquely creative or versatile in deviating vantage points between the characters, the bigger problem certainly stems in the titles of the chapters that unintentionally give away some of the biggest twists of the movie, long before they play out on-screen, and considering these periodic intrusions halt a scene’s progress, then continue it from exactly where it just left off, it destroys what little momentum that this movie was able to manifest for itself, for these framing devices that do nothing to enhance the story, where it could be sacrificed all together from the finished product, and yet the movie would lose nothing for its absence. In addition to this, I never felt like the film dove deep enough in the depths of Dolly’s ambiguous backstory to even give us an eye level understanding on the history of the character, perhaps as a means of maintaining mystique for a rumored prequel that would dive more into these concerning aspects. While that intention is certainly noble towards selling tickets for a future installment, it proverbially puts the cart before the horse, in terms of assuming that there will even be a big enough audience to ensure a second film, to begin with, and while I’m somebody who constantly abides by the idea of maintaining mystique in these mysterious slashers, there’s simply nothing here accomplished that makes her even remotely as compelling of a killer as some of the genre’s most iconic killers, making me wish that Blackhurst took ten additional minutes of material to at least graze towards a surface that he could all together reveal during a future installment. The script also is unable to evade such clunky and mindlessly stupid actions of its protagonists to keep the conflict going, particularly those enacted by Macy, which inscribe such a detrimental stupidity and laziness to her character that ultimately kept me from investing further in her character. There are far too many examples to list here, however one of the more egregious examples pertains to one moment where she’s fully capable of escaping, yet stays there so she can capture back a ring that was taken from her fiancé, and while I totally understand sentimentality in an object so meaningful, there’s simply no place for it when it comes to your life being in danger, and I found myself constantly yelling “Stupid” every time this character had an available out that she constantly wasted, making her feel like a first act victim in any of the classic slashers that are much better than this mediocrely contrived effort. Finally, even the technical components from the film are far from perfect, as the sloppiness of the editing occasionally cut directly into the clarity and coherence of the violence’s visual cues, leaving me scratching my head longer than necessary to figure out what happened to characters favoring an area on their bodies. For my money, this happens twice during the film, where Dolly will lunge at a character, and this immediate cut flashes forward to where her victim will sell its impact, without the action in between to convey meaning, and considering it leaves us hanging onto the visuals of the following shot to either confirm or deny our suspicions, it conjures too much distraction to scenes requiring our undivided attention, surmising the single instance of amateurism to an otherwise professional production that connects with so many of its big visual swings.

OVERALL
Dolly is a garishly gruesome sadistic slasher that capably conjures enough shock and awe in its grindhouse galvanized gore to seep under the skin of its blood-thirsty audience, even as a lack of substantial depth of the script threatens to undercut the magnitude of its memorable impact once the credits roll. For a one time watch, there’s enough psychology in the performances, as well as technique in the unhinged filmmaking to override the durativity of its genre-heavy familiarity and tropes, but as the next iconic slasher mainstay in the subgenre? It’s an underutilized shallow swing and a miss for this problematic project of limitless potential, opting to tease a circumstantial prequel that may never see the light of day

My Grade: 6.0 or C