A Brilliant Conflict

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Jen Otto (Suzie Frances Garton) isn't well, she isn't happy and she isn't finding much support from husband Paul (Lee Bane). Their son Gene (Flynn Allen) has been given a doll, a bug-eyed grinner called Robert, by recently sacked family cleaner Agatha (Judith Haley). Robert will be Gene's best friend forever, promises Agatha. This is writer/director/producer Andrew Jones' first foray into Robert's world – the doll is an enigma he would return to more than once.From then on, strange and unaccountable things begin to happen in the family house. Naturally, poor Gene gets the blame for this, but he's adamant the doll is responsible. If only mum and dad would pay a bit of attention to the evidence. When Jen's painting is daubed with red paint, the doll's shoes are covered with red. Wouldn't there have been a few footprints? The situation is fairly unreal, but that doesn't mean that a certain logic should be ignored.Where the film scores though is in the characters – Jones always writes really well for his characters, and you feel especially for Jen's plight: she is mentally fragile anyway, and the more outlandish things happen, the more likely it is to everyone else that it's all in her mind. The doll, however, sits and leers through it all, as relationships reveal their strained nature and resentment bubbles to the surface as a result of Robert's interference. It is pretty creepy stuff, but rather less so on the occasions when the prop is required to move.I don't often comment on other reviews but a lot of online viewers have been negative about this and I truly don't know why. A horror story about a malevolent doll (based on a true story, apparently – according to IMDb, Robert Eugene Otto (Gene) was first given Robert the Doll in 1906, when he was just six years old, by an angry Bahamian servant with an interest in black magic and voodoo) can either make you laugh or scare you: either way, you're going to be entertained. Perhaps the lack of humour, no knowing wink to the audience, aggravates the audience. Perhaps the leisurely pace of proceedings (a trait of Jones) is to blame. Surely people aren't shallow enough to criticise a low-budget project for having a low budget? This isn't a Hollywood blockbuster and has no intention of being. A pity that people can't enjoy these films for what they, rather than when they're not.I enjoyed 'Robert', as I have enjoyed all of Andrew Jones' output. The ending, open to interpretation, is particularly effective.

I don't normally write film reviews but feel like I owe it to potential watchers of this movie to write one. First of all, the people that gave this movie 7/8 put of 10.. have you ever actually seen a decent horror movie?!The acting if you can call it that was beyond terrible. Literally painful and cringey to watch. Felt like they were all auditioning for a commercial or something. This could have been so much better had they used decent actors and a slightly bigger budget. Also did anyone notice that the movie was filmed inside a hotel?! Nothing about the movie felt genuine and I didn't expect much from the movie but didn't realize it would be this bad!Please save yourselves the time and watch a proper horror movie instead. 'The Boy' for example is a great doll horror with a great twist.

the movie was a fail from start to finish..low budget poor and short music score for background effect to create an atmosphere of ominous and foreboding scenes of laughable and comical to me..in how such poor effects and props used to make us fell the doll was plodding with bunny slippers ..ive watched sting ray and and captain scarlet move more smoothly in giving animated steps..this was supposed to be a horror movie and for me it was cracking me up in laughter constantly throughout..poor Robert the Doll stunt double creation..and i found it comical he had one terrible cataract in one eye.. i felt sorry for the doll, and laughed when he was on the move ..particular scene where hiding in the bushes having gotten out the shed then flying across the garden.past the bushes .. Maybe if this story was taken on by a respected and accomplished director in Hollywood it could be a rather thrilling and terrifying events for viewers ..I assume that the doll if now in Florida museum never got to be looked at by the famous couple who are known well to have rid houses of evil forces of demonic and malevolent spirits of violence..and the objects which they came from and trapped back into ..are kept in a secure room all in sealed glass cases... so as not be kept from ever bevomeing another fmailies horror story..i tried to connect ...to the film ..but it never once produced a way to have a hold on my attention ..never mind..

Brought this film because I'm into haunted object stories and the story of Robert the doll is a good one. However this film is massively disappointing. Stilted, wooden acting and continuity mistakes mean that it's more of a comedy than a horror. The doll is more like a ventriloquist's doll than the actual doll which is scary as hell. The woman playing the mother isn't really believable as a person, the father is every man role cliché imaginable and the child is unconvincing and lacklustre. Overall they have taken a brilliant story and turned it into 90 minutes of boring, badly acted rubbish. Don't waste your time.