Dolls (Stuart Gordon, 1987)

My childhood teddy bear is perched on a shelf overlooking the area where I like to sit and stare at stuff. (The T.V., the television, and the boob tube being my absolute favourite items to stare at in that particular area.) Sporting a dust covered blue tuque, a red sash, and a deflated purple birthday balloon tied to its left leg, the bear innocently watches over my inherent lameness with a stoic brand of hirsute dignity. I have to admit, I never gave much thought as to what its homicidal intentions might be (after all, it's just an inanimate object). But that all changed after I witnessed the killer playthings in Dolls, the lively Stuart Gordon (From Beyond) directed ode to pulseless malevolence. The second the motion picture was over, I immediately sprung into action. Grabbing the dangling ribbon attached to the deflated purple birthday balloon, I proceeded to tie the bear's legs together in a mentally unsound attempt to render the potential creature immobile. My logic being: if the furry bear was going to kill me, it would have to work extra hard to do so. (I'd like to see it try to untie a knot without thumbs.) Now I realize the chances of the furry bear hurling itself in the general direction of my face and clawing my eyes out were slim to none. Not because I tied its legs together, but because toys don't intentionally hurt people. However, the act of shackling the teddy bear did bring me the peace of mind I couldn't acquire with an unshackled teddy bear in the house; its red demon eyes watching over me with a lascivious hunger. This paranoid dementia of mine is a testament to the craftsmanship of Stuart Gordon and his crack team of doll wranglers.

Whether the dolls were inactive or desperately trying to saw a woman's hand off, the dolls were sufficiently fiendish. Actually, just the mere sight of the dolls standing en masse was enough to engage my moist regions in a positive and productive manner. I chose to view the fact that they also stabbed people as an added bonus.

The simplistic plot of Dolls was quite welcome, as my brain (my primary moist region) was in no mood for deciphering a convoluted storyline about a cursed toymaker and his wonky disinterest in all things grownup. Well, there's some of the latter in the film: Gabriel (Guy Rolfe) and Hilary Hartwicke (Hilary Mason), the sinister yet friendly elderly couple who have way too many dolls lying around and possess an unsophisticated disdain for adulthood. But for the most part, it's your typical car breaks down in front of a menacing-looking mansion during a violent thunderstorm, human contents of said car end up staying the night and battling depraved dolls story.

The first broken-down car contains the Bower family, David (Ian Patrick Williams) and Rosemary (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon) and their daughter Judy (Carrie Lorraine). A second car shows up a bit later carrying two English punk chicks, Isabel (Bunty Bailey from Hot Gossip) and Enid (Cassie Stuart), and a guy named Ralph (Stephen Lee) to give the film more in terms of victim variety. The fanciful Judy is the first to notice there's something evil afoot, while the rest carrying on blissfully unaware that they are surrounded by an armada of bloodthirsty, knife-wielding dolls.

Surprisingly, the least annoying performance in the film is that of Carrie Lorraine as the pigtailed Judy, an adorable little scamp who enjoys daydreaming; in fact, one of her daydreams involves an oversize version of her beloved teddy bear tearing apart her stepmother. As you would expect, this grisly vision gives us a terrific insight into Judy's strange psyche. Anyway, I enjoyed her puckishness and the on the cusp of being creepy relationship she forms with Ralph.

The punk rock hitchhikers were pretty good as far as being obnoxious and uncouth in a stuffy setting, but I definitely could have used more clear shots of their awesome makeup; the film is awfully dark at times.

If this film has taught me anything, it's that my wherewithal when it comes to telling the difference between fantasy and reality needs some serious tweaking. And that in the future, I shouldn't be so nonchalant about admitting that I watch doll-based entertainment from the 1980s with stuffed animals.

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From Beyond (Stuart Gordon, 1986)

The idea that there's some kind of alternate universe, one full of gruesome and fantastical creatures big and small, coexisting alongside ours has never intrigued me (my interests rarely stray farther than that of a sturdy pair of welding goggles and a decent piece of toast). But for the sake of this inane exercise, I'll pretend that I just can't get enough of the great and secret show that is supposedly happening on the other side of the molecular breakfast nook. Knowing a thing or two about H.P. Lovecraft, and mad scientists in general, after making the glorious Re-Animator, writer-director Stuart Gordon quickly follows up that masterpiece of lab coat horror with the equally ghastly From Beyond, a mucilaginous itch of a film that you should never scratch. Everything about this slime-laden undertaking looks like it's been mildly infected–okay, extremely infected–with some sort of throbbing, incurable rash. Which is a good thing. I mean, the fact that the goo used in this film was tactile went a long way in conveying a genuine sense of stickiness throughout the proceedings. And if there's one aspect I hate most about movies that feature horribly mutated scientists who love kinky sex and live in an unseen realm of existence is that sometimes the ooze ain't real. As expected, the story revolves around two scientists, Dr. Pretorius (Ted Sorel) and Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffery Combs), and their attempts to increase size of the pineal gland (the brain's so-called "third eye"). They're doing this because they want to see what lies beyond the domain of reality. Utilizing a large gizmo called "The Resonator," the two scientists, again, as expected, go too far, and Dr. Pretorius ends up having his head removed from the rest of his body. Accused of murdering him (who's gonna believe that a floating demon fish from another dimension took his head off?), Tillinghast is locked in a mental asylum and is put under observation.

A psychiatrist, Dr. Katherine McMichaels (Barbara Crampton), takes an interest in the crazed scientist, and convinces the staff of the asylum to put him under her direct care. Bringing along a brawny cop named Bubba (Ken Foree) for protection, they return to the purported scene of the crime and begin experimenting with the Resonator. Which, of course, leads to them finding out that Dr. Pretorius isn't dead, and that he has many surprises in store for them.

What I didn't expect was the way the supposedly sane Dr. McMichaels and the supposedly insane Tillinghast switched roles. Sure, the latter has started to grow an eye-like tentacle from his forehead, but it's the demure doctor who keeps turning on the Resonator when no one is looking. Out of his element and a tad annoyed by the whole situation, Bubba, who is probably the sanest of the three, just wants to get the hell out of there (the bite from the squid-like entity and the confrontation in the basement with that giant worm has soured his mood somewhat).

Anyway, this sanity role reversal was my favourite non-revolting, non-titillation element about this sordid film. I mean, who would have thought that a character played the always awesome Jeffrey Combs would turn out to be the least crazy? Not me, yo.

The multiple scenes that featured the forceful sucking of brains through eye sockets had me reaching for a bag, not to cradle the lumpy wetness of my vomit, but to crawl into, as to be not expose myself to such a delightfully messed up manner in which to dine on brains. Now, I've seen brains eaten so many different ways over the years, that it's become a bit tiresome (bash head, open skull, consume brains). But to see them devoured through a person's ocular cavity was mind-blowing experience. One that I won't soon forget.

Also impressive in the gross department was the look of Dr. Pretorius in his altered state. Dripping a never-ending stream of pus and mucus, this lurid rendering of the perverted doctor is one of most vile and disgusting villains in film history. And not just in terms of appearance, either; his personality is just as abhorrent.

On the receiving end of this nasty disposition for the majority of From Beyond is the lovely Barbara Crampton (a game actress who had cunnilingus performed on her by a severed head in Re-Animator). A button-down psychiatrist for the first half of the movie, Barbara starts to shed her buttons when she sneaks upstairs for a private session with the Resonator. Wearing only a diaphanous nightgown, the attractive actress comes face-to-rectal-spore-cluster with the demonic Dr. Pretorius. Sexy and repulsive at the same time, this particular scene is only a warm up to hotter things to come.

It's implied that Dr. Pretorius, before becoming an ever-changing mass of moldable flesh, had a bit of a taste for bondage, and since Barbara's see-through nightie was ruined with her encounter with the seeping mound upstairs, the gorgeous shrink decides to raid his closet. Oh, what a tremendous decision that turned out to be.

Sheathing her bodacious bod in sadomasochistic lingerie, Barbara becomes a lustful dominiarix in the blink of an eye. Making one briefly forget that there's an epic struggle going on against an icky monster, Miss Crampton toys with an unconscious Tillinghast, and then proceeds to engage in the straddle felt around the world. Mounting the unaware madman like he were a bucking bronco, and exposing the crack-aligned symmetry of her leather thong, Barbara Crampton should have been given an award for her humanitarian work in this scene, as it is not only a thing of exquisite beauty, but a solid reason for living.

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