Black Devil Doll from Hell opens with this proclamation: "We all have our personal horror stories to tell. May yours never be as devastating as Miss Helen Black's." I'm glad that director Chester Novell Turner decided to include this expression of sentiment. Because now, I dread the day where I find an antique shop that sells a ventriloquist doll which will not only molest me, but call me a bitch over and over again, until I am driven mad. Verily, there is no worse fate on this Earth, save for perhaps enduring an existence without Black Devil Doll from Hell.
Helen Black is an ultra-Christian in a world of sin. Her friends call her up to brag about their gangbangs, and she runs into thieves selling stolen goods out of their car trunks on her walk back from church. She's sanctimonious and has a rather large stick up her ass, but many of her peers are just as bad. It's pretty great that her friends think they can talk about sex with her when she's told them time and time again about her beliefs on such things. Anyway, Helen eventually ends up at an antique shop where she is fascinated by a ventriloquist puppet. The store owner tells her it once belonged to an East Indian sorcerer, and it always finds its way back to the shop--she's sold it four times but it's returned one way or another every time. Helen decides to try her luck, bringing the doll home with her. Soon the doll comes to life and introduces her to the world of rape, consensual sex, and being called "bitch" every five seconds, all at the same time. These scenes are virtually indescribable because it's a woman being fucked by a puppet. When she wakes up she finds the puppet missing, and tries to replace him with flesh-and-blood men. This isn't the same, though, and she eventually remembers that the puppet always returns to the store. But you only get one try at puppet dick, because when she re-purchases the doll and tries to make it fuck her, its eyes light up and she dies from what appears to be brain hemorrhage. Fin.
This movie is upsetting on basically every level. Not only is about puppet-rape and its transformation into puppet-lust, presented as an apparent consequence for religious devotion, but aesthetically and directorially it is also a sensory mess. Scenes end too late, music comes in too earlier. The stylishly awful Casio just sort of barges in with no cares about appropriateness or dialogue mixing. For example, when the antique store owner is giving Helen the doll's backstory, a high-pitched squeal immediately breaks in and starts muting the dialogue through pure aural force. Characters will start talking but a lack of union between the cuts and cues fill their lines with unnatural pauses. And, if you want to see the "ultimate VHS movie" that's still visible through its sea of fuzz, look no further. This is SOV as fuck, and it's a miracle.
Then of course there is the script. Helen puts nylons on the Black Devil Doll from Hell, saying, "These will make you just a shade darker...you'll look more real." She follows this up with, "These are the only eyes to ever see me NEKKID...until we're married." So, is she gonna marry the doll then? When the doll pops out to knock Helen unconscious, not only is he played by a child, but the soundtrack appears to consist of velociraptor noises taken from a nine-year time-portal opening up to a showing of Jurassic Park. It just gets better and better.
The rape scene is simultaneously disturbing and laughable. We get lines like "Now that you have smelled the foulness of my breath, you can know the sweetness of my tongue" and "Heeeeeere's Johnny!" The foul breath in question is represented by filling the dummy's mouth with dry ice. The actors also go all-out on making sex sounds, so it does sound like porn if you look away. But when you look back, it's a two-and-a-half foot tall puppet fucking a human woman. There is no preparation for this.
Somehow, the whole affair does manage to be a little boring at times, due to a large amount of padding, but this simple tale contains enough vomitous horror for everyone and anyone who can dare its cruel mysteries. Just be ready to get shocked to your soul.
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