Dangerous Worry Dolls (2008 Video) User Reviews

Far from Brilliant.

[FrightMeter · 3/10 · 15 October 2008]

Eva (Jessica Morris), a young single mother, apparently has been a very naughty girl because she finds herself in prison for being part of an armed robbery where the clerk was killed. To top it off, apparently she isn't liked very well, as the opening scene of the film has a group of the resident bull-dyke looking inmates trying to shove Eva's hand in the garbage disposal for refusing to be part of the drug ring. The confrontation is broken up by Carl, the prominent guard, who then proceeds to beat the crap out of Eva himself, as he has a habit of doing with several of the female inmates. When Eva complains to the prison warden...wait....I'll let YOU guess and how the prison warden acts. Is she nice and understanding?? Of course not because that would go against the cliché and stereotype that this film seems to thrive on. Instead, she is a cold, heartless bitch as we have seen in countless other prison-themed films. Eva's daughter soon visits and gives her mother a gift...a tin of Worry Dolls that apparently if you confide in, they make your worries go away. That night, Eva confides in the dolls, and while she is sleeping, one of them comes alive and crawls in her ear (seriously), apparently possessing her. She wakes up with an entirely new "Screw It" attitude and begins killing off those who taunt her due to her possession.

First, there is a lot going on in this film. Too much for such a low-budget DTV film that nobody seems to know exists. There are side stories involving the head guard, which it somewhat mind-boggling in its stupidity. We also get a love-interest story involving Eva and another guard, and whiney female inmate who is also picked on by the group. The problem is that these do nothing to drive the already clichéd plot except slow the pace. The gore is virtually non-existent, so that certainly won't keep the interest of gore hounds. The acting verges from terrible to OK. I am actually surprised at Jessica Morris, who was TERRIBLE in "Bloody Murder." She is actually decent here and seemed to really get into the role. Another problem is the clichés and stereotypes that abound the plot. We have every stereotypical prison inmate you have seen present here. They are cruel, the prison warden is crooked, and the guard has his way with the inmates he choses. We have seen it all before and it makes for some pretty boring and worthless characters. The end of the film will have some laughing, simply because one special effect that has the worry doll emerge from Eva's forehead and start grunting and moaning. Again, seriously.

I probably put too much effort into this review, as a "I thought it sucked" would have sufficed. It's an example of a film with a cool sounding premise that is executed in all the wrong ways. It's lazy, boring, goreless, scareless, and ridiculous.

My Grade: F

Um...it's okay...

[whammy666 · 5/10 · 30 July 2008]

I was actually kind of excited about this movie, it had an interesting plot idea, and sounded pretty original. And at the same time, it kept the whole "Full Moon Killer Dolls" theme going. Even the trailer made it look pretty decent, with an obvious homage to From Beyond. However, the movie moves extremely slow, and is often uninteresting. There is a severe lack of gore, and not much comedy. And a movie like Full Moon should be funny, because you know it is not going to be a genius film. The acting is okay, not awful, not very good. The characters did not seem most likable to me, therefore I didn't really care if anyone died or not. However, the ending is kind of cool. It's just too bad, this movie had some good ideas, but lack of action and good characters make it only okay. Hey, it was better than Petrified.

Brand (new)

[kosmasp · 5/10 · 29 November 2010]

First off, let me tell you that I can not compare this to earlier works of Mr. Brand, because I do not have them clearly in mind right now (and I haven't seen all his movies either). What I can say though, is that this movie is pretty decent. Especially if you consider the title and it's theme/story.

It's not breakout great or anything but it is entertaining enough for a small budget movie. The actors are decent considering the material and the movie does not deteriorate into complete camp and absurdity (which you might find to be a bad thing, I guess). Low budget horror and nice effects (though most is off camera) works in favor of this movie.

Sadly, its time to seal up the tiny coffin

[Jim-D · 5/10 · 1 April 2008]

A lifelong fan of Charles Band... or at least since the first Puppet Master film, I am always first to pick up his latest movie, regardless of how silly it might seem. I just got a copy of Dangerous Worry Dolls in the mail last night and, without the slightest hesitation, quickly popped it in the player.

The verdict? Its sadly time for Charles Band to ditch the "tiny things do bad stuff" storyline he's been milking for the past 20 years. This one is certainly the final nail in the teeny, tiny coffin.

First, the good: Band is DIRTY in this flick! His past few films have bordered on PG-13; but this one has some really racy stuff (full frontal nudity! sodomy!) and nice, albeit short, gore gags. The lead actress is pretty easy on the eyes, too.

And that's about it.

Now, the bad: The plot is a total mess, with no real direction and numerous story lines leading absolutely nowhere. A nervous girl with a permanent worried look on her face is so over-the-top, she becomes hilarious. While there is some gore, not ONE of the deaths takes place on-screen. Out of the four titular one-inch-tall "worry dolls", only one is used - and we have NO idea where its power comes from or why it does what it does.

And the REALLY bad: Hardly anyone in the film notices the golfball-sized pimple growing on the lead character's head, leading to some unintentionally hilarious scenes. It also randomly changes in size and looks totally different in all close-ups. A "twist" involving a guard is one of the most embarrassing moments in any Full Moon movie - ever.

And the REALLY, REALLY bad? In a terrible From Beyond ripoff, a tiny, 1/4-inch tall screaming skull pokes out of the main character's forehead, forcing her to do evil deeds. The sight and sound of it, alone, is roll-on-the-floor hilarity.

View this one at your own risk, people. Its a small step in the right direction, especially after Doll Graveyard (which had NO redeeming qualities), but still far from Band's heyday.

Bad moon rising

[john-souray · 3/10 · 11 October 2010]

As another reviewer has suggested, it's not worth wasting too much time telling you "this movie sucks". What do you need to know? Cheap, unconvincing sets. Perfunctory acting. Barely coherent plot full of red herrings and non sequiturs. Doesn't last a minute longer than the minimum they can get away with.

This is what? A women's prison? And they have not cells, but dormitories? Through which the male warders stroll while the girls lounge on their beds in their underwear? Even the notoriously cheap Australian soap, Prisoner Cell Block H, had a go at cells, even if the cardboard walls did wobble when people bumped into them.

But what's the point complaining? It's a Charles Band film. That tells you everything you need to know.

Almost everything, but there are still a couple of points worth making. It may be bad, like all Band Full Moon productions, but it's still nowhere near as mind-sappingly awful as something from The Asylum Team. I'm not sure why, but I think it may be because there still survives a sense that someone is trying to entertain you by telling a story, whereas in Asylum mockbusters the cynical and exploitative contempt for the audience has long overshadowed any vestigial vision or artistic purpose.

And there's at least one good scene in it. Well, not good, necessarily, but promising. Eva (Jessica Morris, who, fair dos, actually has a creditable go at making something of her part) is being disciplined by the sadistic (natch) warden/matron (Deb Snyder). So as not to leave any incriminating evidence, the warden produces an old electric shock machine, a wonderfully hokey piece of equipment seemingly stolen from the laboratory of Dr. Frankenstein, full of unnecessary coils and valves. As the warden administers increasingly violent shocks, Eva first laughs ("ooh! - that tickles") then shouts out her defiance and contempt ("you're going to have to do better than that!"). There's a genuine, exhilarating demonic power to all this. If only the scene was properly resolved, instead of cutting away and then returning later to a tableau of the aftermath.

And that's what's so frustrating about cheap films like this. With just a little bit of effort, a little bit of care and attention to detail, that spark of creativity could have been fanned into something worthwhile. Not great, necessarily, but challenging, provocative, or even bitterly funny. At the end of the day, it's not the cheap sets or Ed Wood special effects or amateur acting that does for films like this. They actually don't matter; you only notice them because for so much of the time there's nothing else to notice. No, what does for these films is the laziness, the negligence, the numbing lack of ambition. It's the script and plot that lets them down, and they cost next to nothing. Just spend a bit of time thinking through those plot strands, and find a resolution that ties them together. Dialogue rusty? Get a second pair of ears to work through it. Concentrate on a couple of key sequences (in this film, that'll be the electric shock machine, and the waste disposal unit) and take a bit of time and care getting them right.

But that's the film that might have been. This one, I'm afraid, is not worth wasting your time or money on. Well, probably not. I got my copy from a pound shop. That's a British recession-driven thrift store: everything a pound or less (about a dollar fifty). At that price, I'm not really angry. It gave me a wry smile or two, and added to my knowledge and understanding of Z-grade horror films. But don't pay a penny more.

More killer toy rubbish from Full Moon & Charles Band.

[poolandrews · 3/10 · 28 June 2009]

Dangerous Worry Dolls is set in Meredith State Detention Center for women, a minimum security prison basically. While visitng her mother Eva (Jessica Morris) a young girl named Meg (Rebekah Crane) gives her four small worry dolls that, according to legend, if placed under your pillow at night they will make all your worries disappear by the morning & boy does Eva need them since she gets beaten up & intimidated by fellow inmate Kim (Meredith McClain) & her gang, the sadistic guard Carl (Anthony Dilio) who likes the rape the women & make porn videos of it for the internet & the warden Ms. Ivar (Deb Snyder) who takes a real dislike to Eva & is determined to make life as hard for her inside as possible. All Eva wants to do is serve her time & leave but she isn't allowed to & with the help of the living worry dolls decides to fight back & sort out her problems once & for all...

Directed by Charles Band for his Full Moon Entertainment production company this is yet another cheap killer toy film that if I was being cynical would say was designed & made to kick-start a franchise & sell some merchandise as much as entertain. So joining the likes of the Puppet Master series, Dollman (1991), Demonic Toys (1992) & Doll Graveyard (2005) are the Dangerous Worry Dolls & what a limp bunch they are too, they aren't any bigger than your finger & to save on special effects they burrow inside Eva through her ear & then control her. To be honest the film plays more like a Women In Prison flick as much as a killer toy horror with all the clichés here of sadistic guards who rape the inmates, an uncaring warden, an obligatory shower scene, cat-fights between rivals & one 'straight' woman who just wants to be left alone but keeps getting picked on by the other inmates & has to toughen up to survive only here in Dangerous Worry Dolls it's all very lethargic, poorly written, paced & made so cheaply it has no real impact on a pure exploitative level. I have probably made Dangerous Worry Dolls sound better than it is, I mean there's no explanation about the dolls themselves or what they are or what is happening to Eva & the plot is pretty predictable.

There is one funny moment when the prison guard puts on a strap-on cock in order to rape Eva (this isn't shown) & later on it's revealed that the guard is half man half woman in one of the most unexpected & frankly bizarre twists ever & Eva then puts the strap-on on herself & returns the favor. There's not much gore here, there are some bruises, a bit of blood & one scene in which someone has her fingers cut off in a waste disposal chute. There isn't much nudity for a Women In Prison flick either with just one solitary shower scene & even then only one naked woman is seen. This was retitled to Dangerous Chucky Dolls here in the UK obviously to cash-in on the Child's Play series.

Filmed on what was obviously a very low budget in Linda Vista Hospital in Los Angeles the production values are rock bottom & the hospital location does not make a convincing prison at all, it looks & feels more like a school dormitory. The acting by no-one I have ever heard of isn't very good.

Dangerous Worry Dolls is half killer toy flick & half Women In Prison exploitation & quite frankly all crap. Quite how this turned out so bad is anyone's guess but it did.

Enjoyable, In A Bad Sort of Way

[gavin6942 · 4/10 · 4 October 2009]

After a troubled youth, a woman enters a woman's prison and is soon to be paroled and reunited with her daughter. But a gift from her daughter, some worry dolls, have decided to solve her problems for her with extreme violence. Early parole? Probably not.

As far as films from Charles Band go, this one is actually good. Like, really, truly good. Except for one thing... the dangerous worry dolls. That's right, we have a really tight script thanks to Full Moon regular August White, solid directing and respectable acting... with a dark and interesting plot about prison and the evils therein. The dolls weren't even necessary. The cheesy graphics take away from it.

There's a subplot involving rape and a camera... which is quite a sinister idea. I have to give the writer credit, as this was a plausible idea and one I do not think I've encountered before. It was just, well, evil. Something you don't often encounter in horror anymore, and certainly not from Full Moon, who have devoted their time to more humor than anything. So, while this one falls short, it doesn't fall as hard as some have.

Not bad!

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 26 August 2021]

A couple of weeks ago, I watched the Full Moon remix movie The Haunted Dollhouse, which had a chapter entitled "Worry Dolls." That was really this movie and somehow, Charles Band directed a movie that was at once a movie about killer dolls and a women in prison movie. If he'd somehow had the prison be in his Italian castle, this would have really been the most Full Moon of all Full Moon movies.

Somehow, this movie also has two more titles, Dangerous Chucky Dolls or Parasite Dolls. No matter the title you see it under, it's about Eva, who is abused by everyone in the prison, including a - spoiler - trans guard who forces her to participate in webcam sex to make more money for the warden.

One night, she lies down and her worry doll climbs inside her ear and learns how to walk out of the hole in her forehead when it isn't taking over her brain. This feels like one of the more transgressive Full Moon features I've seen in a while, as there aren't many killer doll WIP movies that have the heroine peg the evil guard.

This was shot in the same place that they made Reform School Girls and it is in no way as great as that movie. But come on. You knew that.

About time Charles Band Moves On ..

[ichocolat · 4 September 2010]

This is it. I truly believe that this is the time Charles Band moves on, and try his hands on other things besides teeny tiny evil dolls. He has been at it for too long, it becomes clichéd, boring & utterly predictable.

Let me reiterate by saying that I hold no grudge against him; I liked his previous films, but I believe that this premise no longer holds the same intrigue like it was before.

People get bored being served the same stuff every time, so in that account, perhaps it's time for Mr. Charles to try making films of other plots, or better still, other genre.

In this film, it has all the clichéd linked to it. The cold-blooded supervisor, the evil wardens, a team of inmates who own the prison; well you get the idea? And the plot & subplot get intertwined that it gets confusing, as it drifts from a plot to another as it sees fit.

However, the last twist is original, thus makes me inclined to give it a better rating. Other than that, it is not worthy of the time I spent watching the film.

a good movie.

[jacobjohntaylor1 · 6/10 · 1 June 2017]

This is a pretty scary movie. It has great story line. It also has great acting. It also has great special effects. I do not know why it got a 4.3 that is just underrating it. I give this movie a 6 out of 10. This is scarier then The silence of the lambs could ever be. This is scarier then the 2010 remake of A nightmare on elm street could ever be. This is scarier then the 2009 reboot of Friday the 13th could ever be. This is scarier the Halloween resurrection could ever be. This a very good revenge story. If you like horror stories you should see this movie. This is one of the scariest movie I have seen. If it does not scary you no movie will.

Why, oh why did Full Moon leave Paramount?

[Jangobadass · 4/10 · 2 May 2008]

Every since Full Moon Pictures left Paramount Studios in the late nineties, they haven't been near as good as they used to be. I don't know what will become of the studio in years to come, but this movie is the last straw for me and I'm going to give up on them.

Hell, even the title is inaccurate: only one Worry Doll does anything, and even then we barely see it. A more appropriate title would've been "Woman possessed by Dangerous Worry Doll".

There's nothing special here: a not-too-bad girl in a women's correctional facility? Check. A group of bitches who control everything and are despicable? Check. A warden who lets her personal dislike of our heroine cloud her judgment and lets the really bad girls get away with doing bad things? Check. A guard who's mean and sadistic and one who's nice, a little girl who's more plot device than a character and inmates who there just to make it looks like a real prison? Check, check, check! If it weren't for the doll and its effect on Eva, this would be your standard woman in prison movie that was played out years ago.

The one bright spot is that after she'd possessed, Eva becomes more upbeat and fun to watch. And her tormentors are so unlikable that you'll want to help her kill them. The problem is, we don't get to see the actual deaths, which are simply implied. And I never I'd thought see the day Full Moon wouldn't show a violent death.

Still, this a step backwards for Full Moon for reclaiming their former glory. And it's far, far too late to go back.

Brilliant!!!

[atomic_age57 · 8/10 · 28 February 2008]

This brilliant, over-the-top dark-humored romp is sure to please fans of both the horror and cult genres. With an original (albeit predictable) plot, great special FX, shameless over-acting and numerous tongue-in-cheek lines, this uproarious little gem is destined to be a cult classic. Despite the rather brief plot summary on the DVD, you'll be pleasantly surprised...I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this latest Charles Band installment. I had not been an avid fan before, but I've got to give Mr. Band "two thumbs up" on this one. The "worry dolls" were exceptionally disturbing....keep up the good work, Charles! Eight stars.

IT'S JUST A ZIT

[nogodnomasters · 3/10 · 20 April 2018]

Eva (Jessica Morris) is in prison and wants to go straight. She is bullied and abused. Her daughter while visiting her gives her some tiny worry dolls. These dolls enter her head through her ear and takes control over her while manifesting themselves as a big zit in the middle of her forehead which on occasion opens up to reveal a tiny miniature bloody skull.

The acting is fairly bad. The prison scenario is cliche. The horror aspect was more of a joke. Not bad enough to be in the Ed Wood category, and not good enough to pass as worthwhile entertainment. This is part of a 20 Horror DVD set available at Wal Mart for $5.00. Might be worth a free Prime watch if you are desperate for bad entertainment and stoned.

Parental Guide: F-bomb, Full frontal shower nudity, off screen rape with object.

Slightly flawed but highly enjoyable effort

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 8/10 · 30 October 2016]

Having trouble in prison, a woman who has problems dealing with the other inmates finds that her daughters' gifted worry dolls are able to help by possessing her and letting her carry out her desired plans for revenge against them forcing them to find a way to stop her rampage.

This here is a decent enough if slightly-flawed effort. Among the more enjoyable features here is the rather unique concept this brings about in getting the dolls into the film's main story which is somewhat new and creative. There's been very little out there with the actual doll concept used here, which makes for a rather unique idea running wild throughout here which lets this play out quite nicely in the high- end action scenes on display. Though being based on a possessed slasher-style of a story here, there's a big difference in the way this is connected to the idea of the dolls behind it driving her from the inside, as not only do we get the scene of them visually entering her but also managing to let the scenes of her running wild against her tormentors with the brawl in the showers, the scenes of her standing up to the problem inmates who have been threatening her and her friends that makes for quite a large portion of this one as well as letting the rest of her personal vengeance get played out as it drives this one here. With her enhanced abilities and the possession driving her into doing other more ruthless and damaging behavior towards them this one really picks up the pace and makes for quite a fun time with the different methods of torture devised here to get back at them, and given all this with the kind of typically great effects work found in these works it's got some really good parts to be found here. Still, there's quite a few flaws present in such a film. One of the biggest ones here is the fact that there's just so many typical clichés found in the film which are found here as the prison here is basically just like any other with the brutal inmates running wild against the others, the cruel warden who lets the guards rape, abuse and mistreat everyone they feel like and turns this into such an overly predictable manner of prison-bound offering. This one also manages to be quite obvious in it's low-budget nature here at times, really wanting to be bigger or grander but forcing the effects work of the dolls poking through her forehead or the laughably inept holding room for the inmates which is simply just a bunch of cots strewn around an open room which really tends to cause some issues here in their standing in the prison but also the rather obvious low-budget nature of what's happening. Likewise, the fact that they're unable to tell what's happening to here is a little hard to take in, really being quite obvious as well about her condition and not doing anything about it is a little hard to believe. These here are the film's biggest issues.

Rated R: Extreme Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Brief Nudity, a Rape and drug use.