Black Devil Doll from Hell (1984)

BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL

WRITER: Chester N. Turner

DIRECTOR: Chester N. Turner

STARRING: Shirley Jones as Helen Black

Marie Sainvilvs as Saleslady

Rev. Obie Dunson as Preacher

QUICK CUT: A woman comes across a doll to add to her collection, and fill that empty void in her soul.

THE MORGUE

Helen - A very religious woman who is godly, pious, and won’t have sex until she’s married.

The Doll - Evil, Eeeeeevil. EEEEEVIL!

As opposed to the Black Devil Doll from Ohio.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! For this week, I decided I'd tackle the second of Charles Turner's shot on video 'classics', Black Devil Doll from Hell. Because why not? So let's just get to this thing.

After we get out of church, and some more of Turner's signature Casio loops music, Helen heads home. She runs into a guy on the street trying to sell her the latest in stolen goods. She brushes him off and goes on her way, being a good Christian woman who wants no part of his illegal activities.

When she gets home, the phone rings, and I swear the other end of the conversation is someone just off camera talking into a coffee can.

Anyways, Barbara is trying to set Helen up with a man and get her laid, but again, nothin' doin' as she's waiting until marriage like a good religious woman.

You can keep your Skinamarink, I’ve got Black Devil Doll from Hell.

Following that, Helen heads down to a little shop called Road's End, or as I like to call it, Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders: East Harlem location.

She comes across our titular doll, and takes a liking to it. The shop owner tells her its history, that the doll has strange powers, and it will give it's owner their most heartfelt wish, and then return to the shop where she will sell it again.

The frogurt is also cursed.

Ladies and gentlemen, Willie Tyler and Lester!

So Helen buys the doll, because otherwise we don’t have a movie, and takes him home. She sets him out on the toilet, and jumps in the shower for our required quota of nudity.

But more notably, while she's in the shower, the doll begins to move on its own, and it watches her naked form through the hazy, translucent shower curtain.

Which isn't good enough for Chucky, so he uses his mental powers (because why not?) to try and open the shower curtain and get a better look.

Yes, that’s it, Merlin! Set the world to rights! Call the dragon! Speak the charm of making!

He also uses his mental powers to implant fantasies into Helen's mind as she begins to pleasure herself in the shower. Which she very quickly is taken aback by her own behaviour.

The fantasies continue to haunt her though, as we go into a long, slow second act of her just milling about her apartment trying not to think about these new wicked thoughts. And I wait for anything to happen.

On the upside, they do manage to make the puppet very expressive, considering. But still.

Anyways, eventually, Chucky jumps out of the closet and pounces on Helen, knocking her head against the wall so this ball can finally get rolling.

He drags her to the bedroom, and after opening *every* cabinet in the kitchen, he finds some rope to tie her down and secure her.

Helen wakes up, with the doll yelling at her, and she naturally insists this isn't real. You best start believin' in ridiculous killer doll movies...because you're in one!

And this is all apparently so she can be given her wish, which I guess is to be fucked hard by a devil doll from hell.

We sit through a solid five minutes of puppet sex, so with all this uh, foreplay, it probably tops up close to 10 minutes. It is...a lot.

Helen goes very quickly from "no no, I am good, I am righteous, I am holy!" to "YES YES FUCK ME YES" and yeah, so much for her high and mighty morals.

Which, I suppose is kinda the point here. Either from a "high and mighty morals don't mean shit" or from a simple story of corrupting the righteous.

Following the non consensual puppet sex...I can't believe I just wrote that...Helen's alarm goes off, and she wakes up, wondering if any of that happened. And lemme tell ya, IT BETTER HAVE HAPPENED. I loathe the trope so much, that if I had to sit through nearly ten minutes of puppet sex for it to all be a dream? I would squawking riot.

But now that the movie has done it's one and only trick, and there's still 40 minutes to go, we have to wander around the apartment for ANOTHER ten minutes. Which I only find acceptable because it does set up how empty Helen's life is. Both before, and after sex. It ultimately makes no difference to how she lives her life.

She does realise that she has had her wish granted, and discovers that the puppet has indeed buggered off, leaving her alone and horny.

La la la, vacuuming the house, nothing weird happened here, ha ha.

Now that she has tasted the pleasures of the wooden flesh, Helen just can't seem to get them off her mind. So after she tosses out all her religious paraphernalia, she lures the street hustler into her house, so she can get her fix. She tells him all about the doll sex, but he still bangs her.

Unfortunately for Helen, she finds the sex unfulfilling, and goes away unsatisfied. Just like normal! ZING! Ahem. I guess once you go wood, ain't nothing else good.

Still, she keeps trying by heading to a local bar, but still it just does nothing for her. I do really like this twist, it's a classic "be careful what you wish for" vibe.

Just hangin’ out, hangin’ out with my family, havin’ ourselves a party.

Helen remembers that she knows exactly where to find the only man to ever please her, and heads back to the Spells R Us downtown.

She goes to take what she sees as hers, but the shop owner insists if she wants the puppet back, Helen has to pay for it again. What a scam!

But, Helen buys the puppet again, takes him home, and explains to him how much she needs him, but he is completely unresponsive, just a normal puppet.

This makes Helen upset, and says that if she can't have the doll, no one else will, and grabs it. Finally he wakes up, eyes glowing white, and uses his mind powers to melt Helen's brain.

We see the puppet being sold once more, but that's pretty much the end of the movie.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks like an 80s shot on video movie. Whoof.

Audio: There is some loud piercing music at times, a lot of the dialogue gets buried, and it sounds muffled half the time. Not great, but you hear 90% of it fine.

Sound Bite: “Now that you have smelt the foulness of my breath, now you may taste the sweetness of my tongue!”

Body Count: This one isn’t about the killing, I guess. It does have a Little Death in it though.

1 - 45 minutes in and my will to live is murdered

2 - An hour 20 minutes, and Black Chucky melts Helen's brain.

Best Corpse: I mean, there’s only the one

Blood Type - D+: There’s some nice bleeding when Helen gets her brain melted. And I give a lot of credit to the puppetry.

Sex Appeal: There is plenty of nudity with Helen in the shower, in the bed, and here and there.

Drink Up! Every time Helen is called a bitch.

Movie Review: Sigh. I am not a fan. There is a LOT of nothing here. It is remarkably straightforward. This would have been better as part of the Quadead anthology, make it the crowning jewel of those shorts. That would’ve worked much better. This is too padded, for too little. The idea is fine, it just is so light on content. But it is well shot, and Helen is a good actress, for what this is. For a budget of five bucks, it turned out well, if I’m being honest. I have huge respect for anyone who puts a movie out like this, regardless. Two out of five stolen televisions.

Entertainment Value: The highlight here is, obviously, the doll. Again, the puppetry is really good. All the gags with him are well done, and it has a definite presence, even if it does get a bit abrasive at times. So, there’s like 20 minutes in the middle that’s really entertaining. Two out of five bibles.