Dolls

During a thunderstorm, a clever young girl named Judy and her difficult family find themselves stranded near a crumbling mansion. They are welcomed, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, by two elderly hosts who project warmth while keeping the house at a uneasy distance. A couple of punk rock misfits and a timid salesman crash the gathering, turning what begins as an awkward family visit into a surreal house party. The mansion seems to breathe with them, its corridors rearranging themselves around their fears and desires. What starts as a strange night of hospitality escalates into a hide and seek with death, where polite manners mask something far more predatory and the boundaries between guest and captor blur in the candlelight.

Stuart Gordon directs, with a screenplay by Ed Naha, and Dolls arrived in 1986 as part of Gordon's Lovecraft influenced horror phase. The production leans on practical effects and Gothic set design to create a tactile, fantasy tinged mansion atmosphere.

Box office data for Dolls is not widely documented; the film had a modest release and today lives on mostly as a cult favorite rather than a blockbuster. It carried an R rating and reached only a limited number of theaters.

Dolls has earned a modest but enduring cult following among horror fans for its practical puppetry and outrageous set pieces. The doll world and the haunted mansion helped cement Gordon's reputation for inventive creature design and for blending whimsy with fear. Its visuals remain a hallmark of 80s practical effects and retro horror aesthetics, often revisited on late night marathons and at genre festivals.

Critics described the film as mood driven with a strong Gothic atmosphere. The story uses a familiar family dysfunction premise to explore power, control and the lure of appearances, while leaning on practical effects to deliver memorable frights. Some reviews note uneven pacing, but the film remains a distinctive 80s horror artifact. Its reputation has grown as a cult classic over the years.