Director: Lawrence Fowler
Writer: Lawrence Fowler (Screenplay)
Starring: Helen Crevel, Philip Ridout, Layla Watts, Neil Hobbs, Claire Carreno, Michelle Archer
Plot: After a series of inexplicable events, Adeline Gray believes a haunted doll possesses the soul of a vengeful Witch. To have any hope of being reunited with her missing daughter, she knows she must defeat the evil curse of The Witch’s Doll.
Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Horror Tipped on it’s Head
Story: Curse of the Witch’s Doll starts during World War II Adeline (Crevel) takes her daughter Chloe (Watts) to a remote mansion whose doors are opened by Arthur (Ridout) to help them survive the blitz in the big cities.
When it becomes clear the mansion is haunted Chloe goes missing with a witch (Carreno) controlling Adeline forcing her to go through everything to learn the truth.
Thoughts on Curse of the Witch’s Doll
Characters – Adeline is the mother taking her daughter to safety during the war, she is protective like you would imagine any mother, but what she must go through is another battle she must face. Arthur is the owner of the mansion that has opened the door to Adeline and her daughter. Chloe is the daughter that doesn’t want to move and soon enjoys playing hide and seek.
Performances – Helen Crevel is good in the leading role especially with where he character goes through the film. Philip Ridout is strong because his character becomes crucial in the second half of the film.
Story – The story starts out just how you would imagine things going, but half way through this story gets turned on its head going into a direction you never see coming. This both keeps the story feeling fresh, but also takes away from what we experience in the opening part of the film. doing this does break away from the normal main stream story telling and could have given us the shocking twist only to fail to use all the potential it had.
Horror – This does follow the early ideas of horror, it does play into the same scares mostly involving creepy noises or things being thrown on front of the camera, but the lack interest in the characters doesn’t help us care about whether the characters survive any scares.
Settings – Most of the film, in whichever part of the film takes place in the mansion away from the world, which helps create the isolation needed for the horror to take place in.
Special Effects – The effects only seem to be used in small moments, anything that happens does seem to happen off camera to stop the need of too many effects being needed.
Scene of the Movie – The doll image, while cheesy it also seems strangely effective too.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The last 10 minutes just see added for no reason.
Final Thoughts – This is a clever idea for a horror, but it fails to capitalise on the smart twist it takes, this had potential to be original, but not following through takes away anything new.
Overall: Horror that missed the chance.
Rating
