DOLLS (1987)
Directed by Stuart Gordon
Starring Ian Patrick Williams and Carolyn Purdy-Gordon
Weak effort by Gordon lacks the twisted, occult sensibility and ultra-gore of his classics, "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond." A family stranded in the rain winds up in the house of an aging dollmaker who, naturally, produces dolls that walk, talk and kill! They're joined by a pair of British punk rockers, who naturally serve as victims. One of the punks is dressed exactly like an early 1980s Madonna.
The flick is boring, and so lacking in bloodshed it looks like it may have been made with kids in mind for an audience. But it was a big video hit and inspired Charles Band, who financed it, to put out a number of films about possessed toys, including the "Puppet Master" series. It also predated the excellent possessed-doll movie "Child's Play."
This flick does feature some excellent scenes where characters are bombarded by stop-motion animation killer dolls and an impressive transformation scene where one of the parents transforms into a toy, but overall the flick is weak. Gordon directed a number of other films for Band, none of them very good, including "Pit and the Pendulum" and "Daughter of Darkness."