A Brilliant Conflict

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This is probably one of Bands best films to date although not exactly an original concept, but its pretty well made and directed coming across as a sensible thriller. Again we have killer dolls on the loose but much like 'Puppet Master' they do look really good and have clearly been well designed with a lot of care and attention. I especially liked the samurai and German dolls.Its very very predictable with nothing new to bring to the forum. Put simply if you like these types of horrors then you will certainly enjoy this. By now Band is pretty much an expert at shooting model dolls so this is good stuff, not just trashy cheap visuals as in the early years. Just don't go expecting top class acting or thrills or any originality, nice film title though.6/10

...like this 'film'.From the opening credits I knew this one was going to be a stinker. It seems that 9/10 times, movies shot on video (as opposed to film or at least look like they're shot on film) tend to be awful endeavors. It may be the medium, but usually video, while allowing more of the expense of production to go to the production itself (ie. effects, locations, etc.) should be a good thing. The sad thing here is that once again, the description I read was so misleading as to make you think you were renting a B-movie, but one with possibilities.So, the movie revolves around the adolescent daughter of an abusive father (the abuse is inferred, but never really shown to a great degree). Anyway, she's playing where she shouldn't, breaks a vase and you can guess the rest... OK, if you can't... Her father is furious (go figure) and orders her to dig a hole (grave) and bury her only friends, her dolls, in the ground. Well, an accident happens, she inadvertently falls in the hole and dies (I wasn't really clear how that happened) and her father buries her along with the dolls.Jump ahead 94 years... A new family moves in replete with stereotyped older teenage sister, geeky younger teenage brother and their single dad. One night, dad goes out to 'sow his oats' and leaves the sister in charge and angry because she missed a night with the girls. In the end, she invites the 'party' to her house and two clichéd jocks show-up to torment the geeky brother. Speeding ahead... Jocks torment geek, geek gets possessed by spirit of dead girl and dolls come to life to wreak havoc on the sister and her friends.Sound exciting? The description made it sound entertaining by saying this 'film' was a 'gore fest'... WRONG... Cheesy effects, cheesy acting, in fact more cheese than the entire year's revenue of said dairy product produced by the state of Wisconsin. BAD, BAD just BAD...Don't get me wrong, I love B and C movies, but this one was somewhere between an H and a Q. I realized early on that the guy who did the Puppet Master series held the reigns on this one (those were Lord of the Rings by comparison). Lame excuses like 'lack of budget' just don't cut it either, because I've seen some great material on a shoestring (or less) budget: UNDEAD, The Evil Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street, etc.I feel somewhat redeemed because I rented in from RedBox for only a $1.00, but that doesn't completely negate the lost time I spent on this celluloid (or miniDV) turd.

I laughed harder at this movie than I have had at the past 20 comedies released, including all-star movies such as, The Wedding Crashers, 40 Year Old Virgin, and The Benchwarmers. Although I doubt the director of this movie intended for it to be humorous. There were very few times in this movie when I was scared... however at the end of the movie my gut was so sore from laughing so hard I had to forgive Doll Graveyard. First I must say that this movies comedic approach is present even from early... whether it was the bad acting, or the scene in which the little girl falls into a 2 foot deep and breaks her neck. Then the movie tries way to hard to incorporate a teenager factor. Some lines in the movie said between the male and female teenage actors should be taken out and put into a book entitled "Things NOT To Say On A Date". I'm giving this a 10 because... its simply a comedic classic. If you watch this movie with the intent of it being scary you will not enjoy the movie. If you watch it with the intent of it being funny... you will laugh the hardest you've had in a long time.

Charles Band invites you into his Dull Graveyard...This movie starts with a little girl playing with a bunch of dolls. She mistakenly bumps into a table and breaks a vase. Her father comes downstairs and decides to punish her by forcing her to bury her little buddies in a grave outside. She somehow trips and falls into the grave, killing herself. Dad buries the daughter with her beloved toys. Flash forward to thirty years later, a new family has moved into the house. The youngest son is a nerdy geek who likes to collect action figures. Imagine his joy at discovering a whole gaggle of antique dolls buried in his back yard! These dolls come to life and start protecting their new owner by killing everyone that ever picked on him. There are no spoilers here, I'm not giving away anything that isn't on the back of the DVD case.Charles Band returns to what he knows best, making evil puppet horror movies. But just because this is what he knows best, doesn't mean he's any good at it. This is really just a reboot of Puppet Master and Demonic Toys with a new set of evil dolls. The production is shoddy, shot on a cheap DV camera with horrible lighting and a soundtrack that someone did on a Casio keyboard from 1982. Not to mention the fact that the puppets are the best actors in the movie.Ever since Charles Band came out of retirement or hiding, the Blockbuster shelves have been graced with horrible Full Moon movies that are a few pegs below what they used to be. Even in his prime, Charles Band was nobody's genius, but time has definitely taken its toll. Titles like DECADENT EVIL, DOLL GRAVEYARD and THE GINGERDEAD MAN prove that you can't keep a hack director down. Band is back, folks.