Editorials
Toys Are Very Loyal: Stuart Gordon Embraced His Inner Child With ‘Dolls’
“Toys are very loyal, and that is a fact.”
Toymaker Gabriel Hartwicke (Guy Rolfe) says this to Ralph (Stephen Lee) in response to the plucky protagonist’s endearing confession that he remembers every single toy he ever had as a child. The perfect statement that works as a general thesis for the entire film; these killer dolls offer danger only to those that haven’t earned their loyalty. Technically second in Stuart Gordon’s three-picture deal with Empire Pictures, Dolls marked a departure from what fans tended to expect when it came to the horror master. Instead of Lovecraftian gore, Gordon delivered an enduring horror fairy tale that provided as much bloodshed as it did earnestness.
After Re-Animator, Gordon had been gearing up for production on From Beyond when Charles Band presented him with Dolls. Penned by Ed Naha (Troll, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids), the killer doll tale was filmed in Italy with a fully assembled house that was repurposed for From Beyond. The premise was simple; a group of people caught in a storm take shelter at a nearby mansion. One that happens to be inhabited by a magical toymaker, his wife, and their haunted collection of dolls.
Gordon drew inspiration from the book he’d been reading, Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, which analyzed the psychology of fairy tales and how their dark horrors allowed children to work through their fears. In other words, fairy tales should be scary. Hence the perfect blend of child wonderment and gruesome horror.
The story of Hansel and Gretel plays the most significant influence on the film, beginning with the core characters venturing into the woods until they stumble upon a mysterious and remote home, alluring for the shelter it provides from the storm. Gordon sneaks in the visceral horror he’s known for with a violent early scene. A delightful vision of little Judy Bower’s (Carrie Lorraine) teddy bear ripping apart her mean stepmom Rosemary (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon) and selfish dad David (Ian Patrick Williams) before Rosemary’s nagging snaps her out of it. Inside the mansion, they meet Gabriel and his eccentric, sweet wife Hilary (Hilary Mason). The party grows more substantial with the unexpected arrival of kid-at-heart Ralph and the two rambunctious hitchhikers he’s picked up; Isabel (Bunty Bailey) and Enid (Cassie Stuart). None are aware that, like in Hansel and Gretel, the Hartwickes are witches.
Visually, the Grimm fairy tale makes an appearance during certain character moments, like when Hilary pinches Judy’s finger at dinner time, or when Judy reads the storybook during her bedtime. Mostly, though, it’s felt throughout in the morality of the central narrative. The dolls are ruthless and bloodthirsty in their kills, but it’s aimed solely at those who deserve it. In this case, it’s the mean-spirited that have long lost touch with their inner child who deserve death. As the awful adults fall one by one, the truth behind the cadre of killer dolls is revealed; they’re former shells of humans long zombified and rendered porcelain playthings of the Hartwickes.
While Gordon plays up the horror of their deaths and transformation sequences, especially the memorable VHS cover box emulating the transformation of Isabel, there’s nothing to fear for Judy – her innocence and loyalty to new toy buddy Mr. Punch provide protection. She’s immediately taken under the wing of the Hartwickes. On the cusp of serious danger, however, is grown-up Ralph. The grim realities of the death surrounding him combined with his adult sensibilities put him in the danger zone, but his inner child and bond with Judy ultimately spare him from suffering the same fate as his new travel companions.
Looking back at Gordon’s output, Dolls is an outlier. His gory sense of humor has been replaced with an overt sweetness that favors whimsical fantasy over straightforward horror – though it still delivers on that front too. With its R-rating, it’s not quite suitable for children, and yet it’s the perfect formative horror film for a younger audience in spirit. It certainly played a vital role in my formative years as a horror fan.
Fairy tales tend to exist as cautionary tales, offering moral lessons buried within the whimsical and scary. There’s a lot that the film says about basic kindness and decency, and the role parents play in their child’s life. Above all, though, Gordon’s Dolls relays the importance of keeping your inner child alive and well fed; celebrating the irreverence of youth and what made you happy as a child, toys and all. Clinging to the aspects of your personality that reacts and thinks like a child -playfulness, spontaneity, and creativity- are strengths. That Gordon conveys this through horror is demonstrative of his power as a filmmaker, too; with Dolls, he explored the challenging aspects of humanity through his inner child, wry humor and all.
Editorials
Not Another ‘Scary Movie’: Revisiting Forgotten Parody ‘Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th’
After Scream (1996) made a killing at the box office, as well as won over critics and audiences, a lot of folks in the movie biz thought they could do the same thing (and yield similar results). That thing, of course, being a slasher. Most of these opportunists wound up being pretty straightforward; they were low on humor or commentary. Yet others, like Scary Movie (2000), saw the potential for spoofing Scream, and acted on that impulse with both haste and excitement.
A few months after the Wayans’ comedy first hit theaters, Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th landed on the USA Network, as part of the channel’s “Shriek Week” programming. That straight-to-cable (then home video) destination is possibly why many people still don’t know about this one. Or they simply chose to forget. Whatever the reason, only one of these two horror parodies came out on top—and it’s certainly not the movie where Coolio channeled Prince, and Tom Arnold saved the day.
Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th previously went by the name of I Know What You Screamed Last Semester. That Trimark acquisition then settled on a wordier title, just so it could avoid the litigious wrath of Miramax Films. Folks may or may not remember that Columbia Pictures was sued over the “implied connection” between I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and Scream. So, yeah, there was no way that this competing Scream parody wasn’t going to be kept on a tight rein.
A Heavy Reliance on Late ’90s TV References
Simon Rex, Julie Benz, Majandra Delfino, Harley Cross, Danny Strong, Tom Arnold and Tiffani-Amber Thiesen in Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th.
Naturally, there would be similarities between Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th and Scary Movie—their scripts are built on the backs of the same two movies. It goes without saying that the other big slasher of the 1990s, I Know What You Did Last Summer, was as much of a target as Scream. However,the film pads itself with more TV references than Scary Movie did.
Half the cast coming off of (and in some cases, returning to) a WB show could be a reason why. Dawson’s Creek is particularly zeroed in on, based on how there’s a central character named “Dawson Deery“, and how the teen drama’s teacher-student affair plotline is satirized to the nth degree. As if there weren’t enough nods to television, Baywatch, VH1’s Pop Up Video, and even those cheesy Mentos commercials all serve as joke prompts.
Shriek director John Blanchard and writers Sue Bailey and Joe Nelms all hailed from television, so it’s understandable that they would stick close to home. The movie’s humor in general makes more sense, in light of learning that Blanchard worked on SCTV, Kids in the Hall, and MADtv. The writers, on the other hand, were each fairly green, with Bailey being the most experienced of the two; she wrote and produced the game show BattleBots. Nevertheless, they, plus Blanchard, churned out a passable, joke-a-minute movie. The whole thing is staggeringly of its time, but no one here was aiming for longevity.
Having seen enough of these kinds of movies, we know to expect jokes of the low-hanging fruit variety. That’s the parody’s whole prime directive. From the characters having names like “Screw Frombehind” and “Doughy Primesuspect”, to stereotyping that feels taboo nowadays, this is a movie from a different era of comedy. Its coarse, corny, and unapologetic sense of humor won’t sit well with everyone in these more enlightened times. In which case, Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th can be treated as a time capsule.
Does Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th Humor Still Hold Up Today?
“You may already be a victim”—Someone receives a most peculiar threatening piece of mail in Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th.
Although Shriek doesn’t live up to its own claims of being so funny that you’ll die of laughter, its bawdier parts could still lead to some nervous laughter. For instance, after this movie’s parallel to Drew Barrymore’s Scream character is done in—not by the killer but by a bug zapper—the movie throws a newspaper next to the victim’s fresh corpse. The headline? “Popular slut killed! Football team mourns”.
We then move on to the wacky and inappropriate goings-on at Bulimia Falls High School, home of the Hurlers. At this nexus of constant absurdity, indecency, and surrealism, students are seen fornicating on the lawn, cheerleading squad applicants are advised to be comfortable with partial nudity, and terrorists openly prepare for an anthrax attack. It can be a tad jarring to watch, especially if you didn’t grow up witnessing this style of comedy firsthand. Hell, even if you did, you may still have a “what the hell were they thinking?” reaction.
It’s not just the aggressively edgy humor here that can make you chuckle—the slapstick, the sight gags, and the ribaldry all have a decent chance of landing. The movie’s own villain, whose hockey mask was instantly transformed into a crudely Ghostface-esque one after coming in contact with an open flame, commits more cheap laughs than kills. His and his victims’ chase sequences, most of which are cartoonish in nature, left this writer grinning. The Scooby-Doo fan in me also totally ate up that clever unmasking joke.
Final Thoughts on This Forgotten Horror Parody
Shriek If You Know What Did Last Friday the 13th
Now, the jury is still out on whether these comedies are to blame for the death of the first slasher revival. There is more to consider than some parodies. At the very least, the likes of Scary Movie didn’t exactly encourage big studios to put their money on a trend that was being derided to death (and not as profitable as the spoofs). These sorts of movies also felt unnecessary at the time, given how their principal inspiration is already a deconstruction of the genre. But like anything else that quickly becomes popular, mockery is unavoidable.
Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th is indeed a movie nobody asked for, much less needed. As a sample of pre-millennium humor and cultural attitudes, it’s not always precise. But as I’ve laid out, your mileage may vary. Horror parodies typically don’t have the best track record, so managing one’s own expectations here is recommended.
Upon rewatching, I for one laughed a bit more than I did back then. Only this time, I responded to the jokes that my younger self didn’t notice or find all that amusing. So it just goes to show that the movies don’t change—we do.
Harley Cross and Majandra Delfino must unmask the killer a number of times in Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th before learning their true identity.
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