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Directed by Lindsay Shonteff, Sidney J. Furie
Written by Ronald Kinnoch, Frederick E. Smith, Charles F. Vetter
Starring Bryant Haliday, William Sylvester, Yvonne Romain
Unrated • 1964 • 81 minutes
by Deeky Wentworth
Defying all rational explanation, and spitting in the face of common sense,
there is in the pantheon of cinema a woeful lack of films about evil
ventriloquist dummies. Why? I truly don't know, as it is a genre
that is full of possibilities. Considering there are countless films about
generic summer camp slashers, you'd think there'd be more than a handful of
titles about menacing
dummies. But I digress... In Devil Doll, famed mesmerist and ventriloquist The Great Vorelli descends
upon London to play a string of sold-out shows. Vorelli (Bryant Haliday) is an odd man with a
shady past and a glued-on beard. He’s a Count Rugen prototype who sounds too
much like the guy who narrates the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland. His
dummy, Hugo, is decidedly surly, with a penchant for knifing people.
Knock knock. Who's there? Hypnotist. Hypnotist who? The two put on quite a show. Vorelli hypnotizes audience members, turning men
into blubbering cowards and women into groovy dancers. Hugo, he whines a bit,
and, to everyone’s amazement, walks the stage unattended. Mark English is an American (oh that’s clever!) reporter working in London
intrigued by Hugo’s performance. Wanting a closer look at Hugo, Mark (William Sylvester) comes up
with a plan to lure Vorelli into his clutches. Using his socialite girlfriend (Yvonne Romain) as
bait, Mark arranges to have Vorelli perform at a charity ball at her estate. Intuition not being one of his finer attributes, Mark can’t understand how
after nearly raping this woman and then throwing her in front of Vorelli he ends
up single. Vorelli’s tricks as a hypnotist have her immediately under his spell.
Mark can’t really figure it out, which may explain why he’s been reduced to
covering puppet shows for the paper, and the doctors don’t seem too concerned
when she drops into a sudden coma.
Two cannibals are eating a dummy, one turns to other and says... An inspection of Hugo reveals he’s nothing more than a wooden doll. So, how’s
he walk? And how’d he pick up that knife he was waving around earlier? Maybe
there is more to little Hugo than meets the eye. When the puppet visits Mark’s
room in the middle of the night and spews out a cryptic message, he’s quite sure
something weird is going on. Let me tell you, something weird is going on. Vorelli has figured a way to
transfer the souls of the living into wooden dummies. So, whatever could have in
mind for the young Marianne and his newest dummy? Oh, I think you know. The question is can Mark figure it out? And if so, can he stop Vorelli? Or,
failing that, can he get a decent article out of the whole ordeal?
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