Customer Reviews

Living Doll

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Now this little gem isn't your average "slasher" flick. It is a demented love story between a man and a corpse that will make you go WTF?throughout the entire film. Now if you are expecting lots of poorly executed deaths and your typical blonde bimbo with big boobs running around screaming before she meets her demise then you might as well skip this one. Howard is a Morgue worker who falls in love with the flower girl Christine. He has tried to talk to Christine on several occasions but she acts like he doesn't exist. Howard follows her occasionaly and takes pictures of her,in typical stalker fashion. Then one day,as Howard is working in the Morgue,new fresh meat is brought in. It's not just any corpse though,it belongs to Christine who died in a car accident. Howard then loses his mind,over struck with grief,the demented Howard steals Christines still fresh corpse from her grave. He takes her home and tries to hide her from the snooping land lady who hounds Howard for rent and gets suspicious of the strong odor emanating from Howards dumpy apartment. As time passes,Christines corpse slowly decomposes and maggots and rats soon appear eating whats left of her barely recognizable corpse,but this doesn't stop howard from loving her. That is what this film basically is,a man who loves a woman even though shes dead and rotting on his couch. Don't expect much gore here besides the various stages of decomposing from the maggot ridden corpse. The body count is low but that doesn't stop this from being an enjoyable film. The original plot and likable characters make this film a keeper,and it's been released on DVD so don't just rent it,buy it. This film has a similar feel to Joe D'amato's "Beyond The Darkness" minus the fingernail ripping,burning bodies, and acid baths. Take my word for it,you will like this one.

Howard is an introverted medical student, studying pathology, who's in love with cute-as-a-cup-cake Christine. Trouble is that Christine doesn't know, or even care, who Howard is and before our lovelorn protagonist can make the "big" move his object of desire is dead. Howard finds out the devastating news while keeping the "red eye" at the morgue and is ordered to assist in performing the autopsy. From this point the tone of "Living Doll," and Howard's mental capabilities, take a discouraging turn and along with Howie the viewer tumbles and fumbles forever downwards into a pit of stark raving madness and mayhem.

Things seem pretty hopeless for poor Howard. His best friend can't help him, his boss is a conniving slave driver and his landlady is constantly sticking her nose in his business. Howard's only comfort is knowing he's taken Christine's corpse back to his rathole apartment and she patiently awaits him. The fact his paramour's body is stinking and rotting hardly deters Howard from carrying on with their love life, and so he does. Howard talks with Christine and dines with Christine. Howard even marries Christine and summarily consummates the union as all good newlyweds should.

The more this craziness continues the more vexing things become for Howard and the film races to a shock and surprise ending. A surprise ending that will have fans of the genre tickled pink and wondering why they'd never heard of this little gem called "Living Doll." One can only wonder what would have happened had Lucky McKee's "May" met our new friend Howie the morgue attendant.

To no one's surprise the exploitative details of "Living Doll" are glowingly obvious and painted all about; nudity, partying, gore, etc., are slathered, without pretense, across the screen. Regardless, the directors' impressive trajectory, crossed with Paul Catling's ("Hellraiser") imagined and sickening special FX, coalesce fittingly with the arresting on-screen talents of lead actor Mark Jax. Altogether this charged cinematic concoction fires and fuels the film heads-n-shoulders above the drekk that it may have been in the hands of lesser qualified folk.

Being no stranger to DVD extras, Mondo Macabro got really busy and included: interviews with the cast and crew as well as a documentary involving the film's producer Dick Randall, trailers, stills and an interesting short film by "Living Doll" author Paul Hart Wilden entitled "Horrorshow."

Howard is hopelessly in love with the flower girl upstairs, but she hardly even notices that he exists. When she ends up toe-tagged on one of his slabs in the morgue, Howard decides to take his work home with him... George Dugdale and Peter Mackenzie Litten present this nauseating tale of necrophilia with a morbid sense of humor. Like Buttgereit's NEKROMANTIK, the LIVING DOLL is much more than a simple gore spectacle. It is a look into the deteriorating mind of a man obsessed, where reality and fantasy are blurred as Howard imagines an idyllic life that he shares with Christine. Howard's LIVING DOLL is brought to life through a series of incredible special effects created by HELLRAISER's Paul Catling, whose oozing designs are frighteningly realistic and lend a great deal of credibility to the film along with the motionless Katie Orgill in the role of Christine. Litten and Dugdale attempt to even out their repulsive display with several lighter moments in the script and dialog, but the awkward performances by Mark Jax and Gary Martin can be extremely silly at times. LIVING DOLL is sure to shock and disgust, but most of its strength lies in watching Howard's spiraling decent into madness.

-Carl Manes
I Like Horror Movies

What it was is how on the back cover it says the dead girl starts telling the guy to take revenge on everyone that killed her, well that isnt exactly true. She tells him towrd the end to kill her boyfirend that was in the car when the accident they got into killed her. I just want to clear that up so people dont expect some type of slasher flick, but what you can expect is a sick twisted love story of a man in love and living with a corpse as it rotts , he imagines the corpse talking to him as he cooks for it buys it clothes sleeps with it ( not seually , he does make out with it 1 time ). Overall the plot is good but at sveral points does drag and get boring but it still remains very wierd. I know this review is not to great but basically I just brought cause it sounded good and i was not really dissapointed that I did but its not a flcik i will watch tons of times, but I will watch it from time to time on some occasions. Bascally rent b4 you I wish I would have but since im stuck with it I will keep it. It really is notthat bad a good story line pretty good acting, like I said it does drag a bit but its worth a viewing you will have to see for your self.

Dick Randall's last elegant paen to death! Mark Jaxx is superb as the twitching nervous Howard whose love for the local hospital flower girl takes him over the edge and into a relationship that couldn't be described as domestic bliss!

Watching Howard go about his day to day business with a slowly rotting corpse in tow is at times funny, at times tragic but Jaxx never camps it up.

Fantastic SFX too from Hellraiser guy Paul Catlin ... a great little movie and finally on dvd!

I've seen "living doll"when it was relaeased on video many years ago.For a HORROR-movie it isn't that scary at all.
I wanted to see it,as a fan of Eartha Kitt, but very disapointedly she only had 3 oneliners to say in the entire movie.The movie itself I wouldn't rate even a B-movie, but it is fun: no more ,no less then that. The synopsis is about 2 guys, friends working in a mortuary.One of the friends is in love with the girl working at the flowershop nearby ,but is too shy to tell her of his love. When this girl is killed because of a car accident, she lands in the mortuary.This guy still in love, can't just let her go, eventhough she is dead.
He gets confused and digs the body up again after she's been burried and takes her to his rentroom,where he treats her like she's still alive.He buys his girlfriend sweets, and presents and clothing,even a brides dress... Ofcourse after some days the corpse produces a bad smell and so his landlady ( Eartha kitt) comes knocking at his door, one time for the money of the rent which he hasn't payed yet,another time because she hears him talking ,while he's not alowed to get visitors up.Another time because of the smell his room produces... See the movie , to know the end of it...