Dolls (1987)

Leave it to Stuart Gordon to make a movie about the wondrous imagination and curiosity of children while also making a satisfying horror/meat movie. This macabre tale of a moral-minded doll maker and some nasty travellers who stumble upon his estate during a thunderstorm lacks the insanity of Gordon's previous films Re-Animator and From Beyond; instead, it looks forward to his more controlled later works while still maintaining a respectable level of gore and dry humor. (The revenge of the lost teddy bear is priceless.) Gordon also balances his sympathetic characters with his asshole characters, so that we can watch people get it in the neck without losing interest in the people we're supposed to like. A not-bad example of spit-polished '80s-horror-cheese; note that this film also led to producer Charles Band's inexhaustible fascination with killer puppets and other small things, but that's not Gordon's fault.

Grade: B