Yet another movie that was a Monsterdon watch party a couple months ago!!! This one was OK, not great but kinda fun in a campy way.

• youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpH0y8WnW3g
• youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm5IJ7MG8NY
• uBlock Origin adblocker on Firefox should work for those youtube links
• archive: https://archive.org/details/devildoll1964

::: spoiler trigger warning
sexual assault
:::

The story is about an evil stage hypnotist and his dummy Hugo.

...

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Shot almost entirely in close-up, and with the action highlights reduced to a messy jumble of shock-cuts, this is a very pedestrian affair in which the script seems rather surprised at itself and Bryant Halliday plays the leading role on a single note of staring-eyed monotony. The other performances are adequate, however, and the animated doll theme retains just enough of its built-in compulsion to keep things going."[7]

Kine Weekly wrote: "This is another case where a strong but fantastic plot has been allowed to dawdle into mediocrity. The idea of a human personality being transferred into a wooden dummy is an odd-shaped pill to swallow in any circumstances and the director here never goes fast enough to sever the bonds of disbelief, the result is that the macabre goings-on never generate quite the tension they should. William Sylvester does a workmanlike job as Mark and Bryant Halliday wears a beard and a burning glance to melodramatic effect, whilst Yvonne Romaine supplies the feminine interest."[8]

Variety wrote: "This slow-paced pic never comes up to its title in the way of shocks, thrills, scares, sex or other dividends for meller regulars. Filmed in England, its gimmick – a ventriloquial dummy’s revenge on his manipulator – has been done before and better by Cavalcanti and Michael Redgrave in a real horror classic – Dead of Night – and The Great Gabbo of 1929. ... Sylvester gives an honest, realistic touch to the role of the newspaperman. Halliday, however, burdened with a messy beard and one expression, the hypnotic stare, depends on his resonant voice to make the role credible."[9]

Film critic Leonard Maltin gave the film three stars in his review, summarizing it as an "[o]bscure, underrated mystery that features an eerily effective Haliday as a hypnotist-ventriloquist trying to transfer Romain's soul into that of a dummy, as he had already done with his onetime assistant. An exquisitely tailored, sharply edited sleeper."[10]

Morgan Zabroff for Famous Monsters of Filmland declared the film "[o]ne of the most brilliant films to come from England in 1964," as well as one of the most underrated films of its genre.[11]

Reviewing the film for Cinefantastique, Steve Biodrowski wrote: "Although deliberately created to replicate the eerie quality of the ventriloquist’s dummy episode from Dead of Night (1945), this black-and-white English production works tolerably well as a crude rip-off, thanks to a creepy dummy and an even creepier performance from Haliday as The Great Vorelli. The innovation here is that Vorelli is not only a ventriloquist but also a hypnotist who casts a spell over Marianne. Unfortunately, this Svengali-esque subplot sends the narrative down a detour that ultimately leads nowhere, since the real story is about the mystery of Hugo. Fortunately, the story eventually gets back on track for a reasonably exciting climax, which is nonetheless marred by completely side-lining nominal protagonist Mark, who doesn’t really do anything to resolve the story."[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_Doll_(film)