Movie Review: The Doll (2016)

The Doll is an Indonesian film released on Netflix in 2016. The Doll is a movie that could make children be afraid of owning a doll. The doll comes alive in this film, caused by a spiritual energy of a dead child. In this film, a five-year-old girl named Uci died during a botched home robbery in which a man force them to open a safe to get money then gone bad and killed that innocent child. The child and the doll would rest in peace under the tree until another family took the doll from the tree and hired to cut it down to make more room for building a shopping mall. It angered the spirit and want to kill that man, Daniel, responsible for cutting down a tree. The Doll is the first in a series in which a doll does strange things. In real life, dolls aren't living so they don't move and interact with things. But in this movie, doll is alive! Well, not because the doll is biological or robotic, but because the doll has spirit in them. The family begin to notice strange things happening around the house and would get more brutal the longer they live in the house. It becomes demon and spread from person to person like a virus. A deceased little girl is taken control of adults. One odd moment in the movie was Daniel looking down on the sink and hears a child's noise coming from a sink drain, and I knew it's coming—a girl's hand sticking out of the drain and grabbed him. The ghost trap the family inside while a demon take control of them and interrogate another, or becoming from friend to foe. There's a climax, Daniel got possessed by Uci and goes upstairs fell one floor down twice to finish the job. Once Daniel is dead, Uci will now rest in peace and the house is no longer haunted. No cleansing or exorcism is needed!

The Doll is a movie that goes away on its own but lead to next one. Some who see this movie would make them worry that doll could possibly move on its own in real life caused by a spirit. A Haunting episode Norman the Doll cover exactly that. I actually watched that episode on the same day I watched the movie!! In the show, the camera captures the doll turning its head by itself. Compared to the movie, the intensity of this episode is lot less brutal and the family had an easy time of putting the doll in peace, but making room for it and not disturbing them. Norman was possessed by a boy who was stillborn. I only hear of ghost from a person who once live; now there's a spirit of an unborn child! Back to the movie, The Doll is considered a heralded horror movie at a low end of high level. For children or people who own a doll, they would not watch this, otherwise the spirit would come out of TV screen and possess the watcher and the doll. Well, demons wouldn't fly out of TV screen, fortunately.

7/10