THE DOLL TRILOGY: REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

THE DOLL (2016), THE DOLL 2 (2017) AND SABRINA (2018): A TRIPLE REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
DIRECTED BY ROCKY SORAYA AND STARRING LUNA MAYA AND SARA WIJAYANTO.

I was thrilled to bits to find these three Indonesian horror films on Netflix recently. Well, to tell you the truth, I’d scrolled past them a few times thinking, yeah, yeah, a scary doll, oooooh, I’m so scared…! And that’s sarcasm, by the way. But then one night late last week, I decided to give ‘em a chance and watched one a night for three nights, and I loved them.

At nearly two hours long each, they’re terrific value for money, and, the best thing of all, they’re like the Indonesian version of the ANNABELLE and CONJURING films! Which I adore, by the way, so coming across these three little gems felt like Christmas Mark 2.

In each film, a haunted doll plays havoc with the lives of a well-to-do, attractive young Indonesian couple on the up-and-up. They live in the most magnificent modern houses that seem much bigger on the inside than they look from the outside, with all the endless passages and hidden rooms, etc. Plus, up-and-coming they might be, but how can such young couples afford such fabulous mansions…?

The husbands are young and fit, usually working in finance or construction, and the wives are young and beautiful with lovely long hair and have nothing to do while their husbands are off out, bringing home the bacon. They have too much time on their hands, which is why sooner or later they’re bitching at their husbands about haunted dollies.

In the first first film, the haunted doll of a murdered child causes chaos in the life of the young couple, who might not have acquired their dream lifestyle quite by honest means. The doll was found up a haunted tree, by the way, and it’s not good karma to do a whizz up agin it, lol. Not illegal, mind you, but just not good karma.

The exceptionally dopey wife, egged on by another bored housewife across the street (give these women something to do, for Gawd’s sake!!!), stupidly welcomes a DON’T LOOK NOW-style ghost into her home, mistaking it for a child that needs shelter, and then runs around like a headless chicken for the rest of the movie trying to shake it off.

In THE DOLL 2, possibly my favourite of the three films, the stunningly beautiful Luna Maya plays Maira, whose daughter Kayla dies in a horrible car crash, but later returns- in ghost form, natch- through the medium of a haunted doll.

The doll, Sabrina, was Kayla’s own in life, and so ugly and frightening it should come with a health warning. The ‘doll’ in the first film was cute and mischievous-looking. Sabrina is a proper horror. And it keeps moving around the place, seemingly without recourse to human agency. Talk about Elf on the Shelf gone bad.

Luna Maya is brilliant as Maira, the grieving mother who is convinced her dead child has come back to her. I was more than happy to see her reprising her role in the third movie, this time with a new hubby in tow, the owner of a famous toy factory, and a new child, though not her own. Her husband is playing guardian to his orphaned niece, but how was she orphaned, o-ho…? That’s a question for nearer the end of the film…

Little Vanya, the niece, not unnaturally misses her mom, who is easily summoned back from the dead by means of a sort of Ouija board game. Summoning folks is easy-peasy. It’s getting rid of them, that’s the hard part. You’ll know the trouble with inviting the dead into your life, of course, if you’ve watched all the same movies I have.

Sometimes, if that door is left open a mite too long, something else can slip unnoticed into the world of the living, and then they’re harder to get shut of than herpes. Maira is terrorised on a harmless family trip to the beach by something from another dimension that wishes terrible harm on her. Who’s she gonna call? Why, the Indonesian version of Ed and Lorraine Warren, of course!

Miss Laras, the beautiful and elegant Ghost-Buster lady, features in all three films, each time with different blokes who might be a husband, a brother, or just a work colleague, I’m not really sure. There are plenty of loopholes, not to mention whopping great plotholes, in all three films, but I didn’t care because the movies are such great fun.

They’re incredibly violent as well, just to let you know. Every second cast member is walking around possessed and equipped with a big knife for stabbing. And, if you’re a director who’s budgeted for a certain amount of knives for your film, you sure as hell ain’t gonna wanna waste them.

What’s strange about these knives, however, is that a load of people are stabbed with them, then they get up and seem perfectly fine again just a few minutes later. ‘I’ve been stabbed? Ah shure, that’s nothing! I’m grand again, anyway.’ Maybe they’re trick knives, lol.

And I love the way the characters in this universe don’t seem to have to endure any tiresome legal repercussions for their actions, in particular the numerous stabbings. The cops are rarely called and, if they are, you can always put ‘em off by saying things like, ‘Don’t worry, Officer, we’ve got this,’ or ‘Shure, youse can go on home, it’s a bit dangerous for you lot here,’ and then they just bugger off as meek as lambs. Makes me wonder what we pay our own police force here for, when we could just be dealing with crimes ourselves like the guys in these three films.

Anyway, I relished every stabby minute of this excellent trilogy (It could also have been named ‘RICH MARRIED LADIES WHO DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TO DO START IMAGINING SHIT AND THIS LEADS TO ALL KINDS OF EVEN MADDER SHIT AND STUFF’) and I encourage you guys to watch it too. It’s great escapism for the auld COVID times. And that, as we all very well know, is nothing to be sneezed at…

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

THE PARANORMAL INCIDENT (2011) and THE PARANORMAL DIARIES: CLOPHILL (2013). A DOUBLE BILL OF GRISLY HORROR FILM REVIEWS BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

THE PARANORMAL INCIDENT and THE PARANORMAL DIARIES: CLOPHILL- A DOUBLE BILL OF GRISLY HORROR FILM REVIEWS BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

THE PARANORMAL INCIDENT. (2011) DIRECTED AND CO-WRITTEN BY MATTHEW BOULTON. STARRING OLIVER RAYON, CHELSEA VINCENT, BRETT EDWARDS, DERRICK SCOTT, SABRINA VILLALOBOS, NADIA UNDERWOOD AND AMANDA BARTON.

THE PARANORMAL DIARIES: CLOPHILL. (2013) DIRECTED BY KEVIN GATES AND MICHAEL BARTLETT. STARRING CRAIG STOVIN, CRISELDA CABITAC, KEVIN GATES, MICHAEL BARTLETT, MARK JEAVONS AND ROB WHITAKER.

‘Six students venture into an abandoned asylum to prove the existence of the paranormal…

Only this footage remains…’

I wasn’t crazy about THE PARANORMAL INCIDENT, although I was vastly looking forward to it because it’s set in one of my favourite settings for a horror film, an abandoned mental asylum. It’s an American found footage film, and the sole survivor of the trip to the deserted loony bin is being blamed for the murders and murder-disappearances of his five friends.

A po-faced lady detective or FBI Agent is going through the found footage with John, the handsome sole survivor. John went into Odenbrook Asylum for the weekend with five college friends, all of whom were there to either prove or disprove the existence of the supernatural for the purposes of a college paper they’re all doing. Wish I could go to Ghostbusters College too, lol.

I already firmly believe in the existence of the paranormal, however, and I’m of such an imaginative and easily-spooked nature that I’m surprised- and kind of a bit miffed!- that a million ghosts aren’t queuing up to show themselves to me every night of the week. Well, it’s their loss, haha. I’d have been so receptive and open-minded as well, but hey, them’s the breaks.

Anyway, the really annoying sextet of eager-beaver college students do indeed spend the weekend- without official permish from any authorities, I might add- in the infamous old Odenbrook Sanitarium, empty and out-of-business since a mass suicide there sixty years ago. Clearly it wasn’t a nice place to live, as indeed most such places weren’t.

Sounds great, doesn’t it, but in reality very little happens in the old insane asylum. A couple of doors slam shut or open of their own accord, a girl’s curly hair is ruffled slightly in the night (as observed through the irritating, ever-present bloody night-vision goggles), but that’s about it.

The ending, with those agents- are they FBI guys or what?- looks like it’s going to be really cool but, as the film-makers leave even this bit unexplained, I was still none the wiser. A disappointing film all round, I’m sorry to say, despite the exciting starting premise.

The bit about the room known as ‘the Dental Suite’ was fascinating though, I’ll give them that. Very ‘MARATHON MAN,’ if you get me. Not a room I’d ever wish to enter, put it like that. I have good choppers but a terrible fear of dentists…!

‘In God’s Church, the devil built his altar.’

THE PARANORMAL DIARIES: CLOPHILL is based in and around an ancient old English country church that’s supposed to be haunted and has a history of actual supernatural happenings taking place there. St. Mary’s Church, the old ruined one as opposed to the later-built one that’s in use now, is the edifice in question.

What makes the film look like a real documentary are the interviews, interspersed throughout the film, with historians, local people and folklorists who all claim that Clophill is haunted to buggery, a site of black masses, black magic rituals and satanic orgies. Well, they didn’t mention any orgies, but you can imagine ’em, can’t you, lol.

A film crew, all playing themselves, a local paranormal investigation group and even a small security team (hiya, Gerry and Dana, y’awright?) set up shop in Clophill, outside the ruins of the old church, over the period of one summer solstice.

It sounds gorgeous, doesn’t it? It’s such a fabulous green, woody area as well, I absolutely love the rustic setting. An old English country churchyard, especially a ruined one, can’t be beaten for the old gothic atmosphere.

Not much happens in these real-life-action bits, just a load of typical night-vision shots of peoples’ eyes glinting like demons. I’m so bored of the greenish night-vision bits of horror films. They all have ’em. It’s like a bloody plague, so it is. 

There’s talk of a demonic face which I didn’t see too clearly myself, there’s an actual sinister figure in a monkish cowl standing still and silent in the back of one shot, and then there’s footage of A, a drumming circle and B, a load of figures dressed in monks’ robes tying a naked blonde girl with very dark pubes (collar and cuffs definitely DON’T match) to a tree and painting a red cross on her naked body.

Don’t get excited now, you randy lot, that bit’s over very quickly. The police are called and they can’t find any traces of the cult activity. Boo-hoo, lol. The film crew, at least the main two ghost-hunters, a married couple called Craig and Cris, go home to find their small daughter standing in the darkened kitchen with her long dark hair all over her face, in the best traditions of every boring horror movie DVD cover ever.

They really lost me at this bit. It demeaned everything they’d been trying to achieve thus far, everything they had achieved thus far. Girls like this, in long white nighties, their faces obscured with long dark hair, are ten-a-penny now. Since the early days of films like RING and THE GRUDGE, in fact. They’re on the covers of half the DVD boxes nowadays, the pictures often bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the contents of the film inside.

For crying out loud, there’s a girl exactly like that on the cover of THE PARANORMAL INCIDENT, carrying an axe, and there’s no such person in the actual film, and no axe murderers in it whatsoever either.

What makes it worse in the case of the CLOPHILL film is that Craig says that this unexplained appearance of his daughter in the kitchen in the dead of night with her hair all over her face is proof that ‘something evil has followed them home from Clophill.’ Meh.

The best parts of the film are the stunning shots of gravestones, tangled overgrown grass and thorny bushes and the ruins of the old church itself, faintly outlined against the darkening sky.

What a place this must be to visit! During the daytime, that is. Not for all the iPhones in Apple would I set foot near there once the sun had gone down. There’s something evil there. That’s one thing the film did convince me of…

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS. 

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger, poet and book-and-movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens’ fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

https://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor