Dolly

Amongst mainstream film fans in the 1970s, horror had a reputation for two things: lazy writing, and scaring the living shit out of viewers. Neither of these was entirely accurate, but what they both reflected was a culture that prized style over substance, in its own way a bold and avant-garde form of cinema. Rod Blackhurst’s Dolly is a film very much in tis tradition, yet made with the benefit of 21st Century technology. It’s hard to describe the plot without it sounding laughable, but as a viewing experience it is, at times, riveting.

Nothing is explained to us. When we meet Maci (Fabianne Therese) and her partner Chase (Seann William Scott), they are dropping off little Evie at a childcare facility en route to the woods, where they seems to have planned some kind of romantic getaway. On the way through the trees they pass a sign which says ‘Scenic Overlap/ Hooper Mine’. A little way further along, they start to find dolls, of all shapes and sizes, stuck to trees. A hidden music box plays a nursery song. In genre terms, it could not get more ominous.

At the scenic overlap, they argue in a playful way, but it’s clear that Maci is uncomfortable. Chase wants to investigate the source of the music. Maci tells him that she doesn’t think he should leave the trail; she thought it was a boy scout thing. Genre fans may think of Angela Carter. Either way, she feels like he’s breaking a rule. How tightly we cling to superstition in untamed places. When you can’t even make it as far as the cabin in the woods, you’re in real trouble.

Before long, Maci is wandering alone through a part of the woods where the dolls grow thick all over the trees, like fungus. Not long afterwards, she is running headlong. Low camera angles and subtly oversaturated colours give a delirious quality to her flight. We are intensely aware of the protruding branches and uneven ground. We also know, already, that she hasn’t a hope of escape. Most of the film takes a place inside a fairytale-style house in the woods which, were it not for Mother Of Flies (also screened at Fantastic Fest), would deserve to win every 2025 award for fantasy architecture. Alas, inside it is rather less inviting, partly because of the Seventies décor and partly because Maci awakens inside a giant cradle in an oversized nursery – with a locked door, of course. There she is to be the plaything, the baby or doll, of the film’s monstrous antagonist, a seven foot woman (played by the inescapably imposing Max the Impaler). From the other side of a wall comes the voice of a man who tells her that he too is a prisoner, and advises her to play along.

Much of the horror in this film comes from how closely all this resembles the real way that many people treat babies, force feeding and beating them, losing their temper, using dummies to silence them. It reminds us how babies learn to follow cues and perform in order to appease, and how this is interpreted as success, even as love. Maci’s captor is very much in the tradition of the pathetic monster who inspires sympathy, struggling to communicate. She does horrific things to others – up close and gory – but she is very clearly broken herself, and deeply lonely. At moments you may even find yourself rooting for her.

Divided into episodes, the film sees Maci’s situation getting worse and worse in different ways , one awful experience after another, reaching the point of absurdity. It has the relentlessness of a nightmare from which the sleeper cannot awaken. In the face of this, Maci is formidable, never giving in, and the film becomes a battle of wills between the two women. Blackhurst tests the viewer’s will as well. He will make you want to cover your eyes at the same time as making you feel compelled to watch.

Big, brash and surreal, Dolly is not remotely believable but you’ll believe it in the moment nonetheless. It latches on to something primal, that fear of a secret world in the woods where the rules are skewed and everything is out of proportion. It does not let go.

Reviewed on: 26 Sep 2025