Doll Face – Film Review

When the beautiful yet timid Marmalade inherits her grandmother’s palatial condo, there is an odd string attached: she must care for each and every doll in her grandmother’s extensive collection, or lose her inheritance.

You know there’s a problem with your movie when the final cut doesn’t even have a director credited or attached to the project. Instead, the incredibly long and tediously boring opening credits end with a doll holding up a piece of paper that says “Directed by”, followed by a bunch of unreadable scribbles.

It’s almost like the director of the film changed his or her mind after seeing the final cut and wanted absolutely nothing to do with it, so they went in to change the opening titles a bit. And if this director didn’t want anything to do with this project after seeing it in its entirety, I can definitely see why.

Virtually every single element of Doll Face comes across as a high school student’s film-class project. It’s extremely cheaply made and it’s so obvious how little effort went into making this film. The cinematography here is nothing short of atrocious and the editing is incredibly choppy, transitioning to new scenes in jarring and confusing ways.

Courtesy of SP Distribution

This story just doesn’t flow correctly, and everything feels so off. And honestly, this movie doesn’t even feel like it has a story. It just comes across as a movie about a girl and a couple of creepy-looking dolls with no actual excitement or thrills added into the mix.

And don’t even get me started on the disastrously bad acting. To be fair, these actors might actually be genuinely talented people that know what they’re doing, but if they are, Doll Face was not the proper movie to display their talents. So it might be that they’re genuinely bad actors, but maybe it’s the fact that the script and dialogue that they have to work with is terrible. There are countless scenes filled with cringe-inducing dialogue that would be uncomfortable for any actor to say.

In all honesty, there isn’t anything about Doll Face that I can recommend. Right from the moment it starts all the way to its weirdly abrupt and hollow ending, this is a horror movie that lacks everything a proper horror movie should have.

Overall Grade: F

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Cast: Alix Villaret, Steven Paul, Patrick Hogue, Jeremiah Benjamin, Tim Dax, Lenny Rosenberg, David E. Rezaieh, Rodney Coffee, Yvonne Maverick

Distributed by: SP Distribution

Release Date: April 6, 2021

Running Time: 74 minutes