Dorathen
Better Late Then Never
Lachlan Coulson
This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.
alexhiro
I really liked "The Doll Master". The atmosphere is unique,as the story is set in an old house,in the forest, which is a doll museum. I enjoyed the way the first scene set in the past was connected to the last scenes: we can actually understand the motivations of some characters and the why they act in a certain way.One of the best k-horrors!
daretostruggledaretowin
The Doll Master is the directorial debut of South Korean director Yong- ki Jeong. It is a story in the House on Haunted Hill (1959) format whereby a wealthy eccentric invites a group of unwitting outsides to their manor for twisted reasons that they're less than upfront about.In this case the eccentric rich person is some sort of doll maker who adorns her house with creepy, life-sized dolls. Every room has some sort of doll in an unsettling pose. Of course, it isn't long before people start dying and you can guess the rest.This film was not entirely thrilling as it was a hackneyed, cliché premise and the acting and filming weren't entirely impressive either. Worth a watch if you're in for some light entertainment a la Steve Beck's remake Thir13en Ghosts (2001), but hardly an earth-shattering experience.This review originally appeared at http://paranoidcinephilia.blogspot.com
Melissa Gómez
Well, I just saw this movie and I started thinking that may be I have seen too much Asian horror because I just had one good jump of fear while watching this film. Even when I have to say that this is the most "frightening" scary-dolls movie I have seen, I have to say as well that, as an Asian film I was expecting more tension and good psychological horror. It actually only contents a little dose. It has more gore than I expected and that I'm used to (regarding to Asian's movies). Besides, at some point it gets quite predictable, the climax is loose, and a pair of special effects are cheesy. On the other hand the acting was really good, the atmosphere was well studied, because,I mean, the dolls were amazingly creepy and well located. The plot is not bad, it's well justified, but I realized that this is an Asian movie with a north American horror style and that's what I didn't like of it. No offense. Anyway... at this moment I'm wondering if to get rid or not of my old Barbie doll that I keep in my wardrobe. May be she can get upset. :D
JoeytheBrit
Here we have the perfect example of a novice writer and director (Yong-ki Jeong) who, bereft of original ideas, draws on every genre film of note in the mistaken notion that all the classic aspects of old favourites bundled into one movie will add up to a kind of genre mega-movie. So we have a creepy wheelchair-bound woman in black, an old-style lift with security shutters, a maze-like cellar filled with spooky passages, a dungeon in which is chained an Oldboy lookalike, a bunch of young kids ripe for slaughtering, a creepy little girl, a monster with long black hair covering much of her face, murderous dolls and a vampire in a flowing black cloak…Well, OK, I made that last bit up, but you get the idea…The central theme of the story – which someone elsewhere has pointed out is curiously close to the concept behind the Toy Story flicks – is a good one, and a degree of poignancy is occasionally attained on the rare occasions that writer/director Jeong can tear himself away from providing repeated LOUD NOISES and jump cuts in his unwavering desire to cram as many cheap scares as he can into the mercifully modest running time. But such brief poignant moments are outnumbered ten to one by those that are either illogical or just plain stupid. Twice, chained people are free with one bound with no explanation as to how they achieved such a feat, and our nominal hero is an undercover cop who manages to remember his undercover handcuffs but leaves his undercover keys back in his room and has to nip back to get them in the middle of the action. He does give his suspect a gun to keep them company while he's gone though…I could go on in the same fashion that the film's conclusion does but that would be cruel. The only positive points I can make about this mess is that the life-size dolls look pretty cool, and the heroine has the cutest smile…Do yourself a favour – if you want to watch a film about rampaging dolls rent a Chucky movie; they're trash too but at least they are up front about it
