Verdict
Summary
Simple but effective, Charles Band’s Doll Graveyard is basically a reworked Puppet Master / Demonic Toys set in a house during modern times with variations of creepy looking dolls to do the dirty work.
Plot:
Creepy dolls buried in a kid’s backyard for 100 years come back to life and wreak havoc.
Review:
A little girl dies in an accident that her abusive father is responsible for, and he buries her in a shallow grave with her creepy, but beloved dolls that she made. 100 years later, a bullied kid named Guy (Jared Kusnitz) finds the dolls in his backyard, thinking that they’re rare action figures, and he restores them over a weekend when his sister has some friends over. With some school bullies over his house, Guy is a target for unnecessary abuse (they tie him up while they party with his sister, for example), which causes his new collection of creepy dolls to come to life and get some revenge. During the process of his dolls’ rampage, the spirit of the dead girl possesses Guy and he becomes intent on making sure no one hurts him / her ever again!
Simple but effective, Charles Band’s Doll Graveyard is basically a reworked Puppet Master / Demonic Toys set in a house during modern times with variations of creepy looking dolls to do the dirty work. Some of the gore is over the top, but most of the time the film relies on supernatural suspense to tell its otherwise basic plot. It works if you’re a fan of the band / Full Moon catalogue, and at 73 minutes, the movie is a little light on the bone, with an abrupt ending. It never had a sequel, but for more adjacent Full Moon doll horror, there’s Blood Dolls, Ragdoll, Devil Doll, and others. The score by District 78 is really good!
Full Moon’s new Blu-ray edition of Doll Graveyard brings the film to its original widescreen format for the first time in high definition, and the disc looks on par with Full Moon’s other Blu-ray / high definition releases. The disc comes with a blooper reel, a making-of feature, and bonus trailers.