Black Devil Doll from Hell

1984 outsider art

Rating: 2/20 (Bad Movie Rating: 5/5)

Plot: A religious virgin purchases a puppet with dreadlocks at a thrift store and is shocked when it knocks her out and rapes her. She's sexually awakened, but will she be able to find a man who can satisfy her like her puppet?

Black Devil Doll from Hell is the type of movie that ruins every other movie for you. You watch this, you watch something else, you say to yourself "Well, this isn't Black Devil Doll from Hell," and start wondering why all movies can't have a ventriloquist dummy with a tongue.

This starts with the longest credits ever, just a black screen with cheap-looking ("cheap-ass," the Black Devil Doll from Hell would say) words. The movie doesn't start until the 6 minute and 44 second mark, and that means that this ridiculous song--"I'm Your Nightmare"--also plays for around 6 1/2 minutes. "Nightmares come true," growls the singer. "You better do what your mama told ya, or I"m gonna come and getcha." More ridiculous is that there are female background vocals singing things like "Oh, baby, you've been bad." I'm already confused by the whole thing, and the movie hasn't even started yet.

I'm actually glad that I started this write-up focusing on the music. You would not believe the score this thing has. There's so much "What the hell?" going on with the music, apparently created by director Chester Novell Turner. It's Casio madness, the type of music that would probably clash with any scene in any movie. It's the kind of stuff early home video game companies would have rejected for being too goofy. It's bouncy and clashing when it shouldn't be, and sometimes, it's just this loud screeching noise that makes the dialogue inaudible. There's a scene in the antique shop where a woman relays the story of the Black Demon Doll from Hell, a story in which the word "puppet" is used about 60 times, where I thought the recording was messed up. Surely, I thought, nobody would put that horrible noise in a movie intentionally. I was wrong because Chester Novell Turner would.

You know what kind of movie this is? This is the type of movie where somebody named Randolpj L. Helton is listed in the credits. Now, in a world where somebody would think the score for this movie is a good idea, I guess it's possible that somebody could name a child Randolpj, but I'm willing to be it's a typo.

Let's talk about this Chester Novell Turner character. He directed one other movie, something called Tales from the Quadead Zone. The storyline for that, according to imdb, has the star from this movie reading "two spooky tales to the ghost of her dead son, Bobby." Seriously, that's what it says. I'd describe him as inept, but that seems like an understatement. Instead, it's probably more appropriate to call this outsider art. It's written poorly, but the kind of poorly where you wonder if the Turner was even mentally stable when he penned the thing. The direction makes about as much sense as the story. There's one scene with a phone conversation where the camera just kind of explores the woman's living room. I couldn't tell if the random shots of the living room distracted me from the woman's phone conversation or if the phone conversation distracted me from the objects in the living room. There are also numerous shots of a stuffed bunny that always seems to be completely embarrassed to be there.

The movie's pace is awkward, mostly because Turner doesn't really seem to know where to go with the story. This easily could have been a 15 minute short film without losing anything. Take the scene where the woman gets the puppet home for the first time, for example. She spends some time darkening its arms, really for no reason at all. She talks to it. She sings to it. She lets it see her naked. There's a creepy scene where he watches her shower while sitting on a toilet, a scene with extraneous nudity that made me feel sorry for every single person who's ever been naked. There's a scene a little later where the doll (sorry--puppet) winds up on her dresser, and she puts him back on the toilet. Why you'd want to display your new puppet on the toilet is confusing anyway. The puppet, of course, ends up on the dresser again. And she puts him back and later says, "Let me go check this puppet, see if he's still where I left him." Now, this wackiness takes up about 10 minutes of a movie that is only 77 minutes long.

Seriously, why does she want the puppet on the toilet? Doesn't she ever use the toilet?

The worst example of Turner pacing is in a sex scene that would be notorious if this movie had been seen by more than 10 people. I can't believe how long this sex scene is. It might, as far as I know, be the longest sex scene I've ever seen. And it involves a puppet and a woman. I like sex scenes as much as the next guy, but this is the kind of thing that you just want to end after 15 or so minutes.

And that puppet! Here it is in case the poster up there wasn't enough to give you nightmares.

Of course, that's the puppet in its rightful and natural place--on the toilet. Thanks to very special special effects, the puppet does move. I have no idea how Turner managed that effect, but I believe it involved a small child who was slightly bigger than the puppet. You also should know going in that this puppet has a tongue, a tongue that might be made out of bacon. No, I don't want to spoil anything for you, but I also think it's probably dangerous seeing that tongue without being mentally prepared. Things don't get completely magical until the Black Devil Doll from Hell starts talking though. The voice work is amazing. The closing credits had "?" playing the titular doll, but Keefe L. Turner, Chester's brother, provides the voice. And Keefe gets to say the most poetic things:

"How you like that, bitch?" (After punching the poor woman in the junk, of course.)
"Did you just fart, bitch?"
Other crude statements that involve the word "bitch"

Not that Shirley L. Jones' character is exactly nice. She does call her friend a "wooden-headed bastard," after all. Jones is not exactly a good actress. I'm not sure we can blame her exactly because she's required to do and say things that no human being would actually do or say. She gets one terrific scene where she's dressing up for a night prowling for me--you know, because the puppet awakened her sexually--and she's standing in front of a mirror with these giant sunglasses. You know how much I like my mirror scenes. She says, "That'll work." And then--cue Casio! Her best moment might be when she realizes that Ricky Roach, in his only role as "first lover," can't satisfy her. Watching two master thespians work their magic is just amazing. "Wait a minute, Mama, you mean to tell me you were raped by a puppet?" Roach is playing a guy who would more than likely sleep with anything. During the act itself, he bewilderingly asks, "You can't enjoy this?" before adding, "I sure can!" Her answer is more of that Chester N. Turner poetry:

"You just hurry up and finish and get the hell out of here."

I guess the lesson is that once you go puppet, you can never go back.

A side note: Every time I watch a movie where the microphone picks up the wind, I'm reminded of a movie that I made in high school. And trust me--that's not a good thing.

Oh, boy. What else can I say? There's a cleaning montage with what might be the worst song I've ever heard in my life. There's an extended scene at a club where people are dancing, quite obviously not to the same song that we get to hear. No, we get to hear more of that awesome keyboard music, and there's no club on earth that is going to play that shit. And when she brings that puppet home for a second time? Things turn downright psychotronic. Eyes glow, Jones starts spinning, the fucking bunny becomes animated, and I lose my freaking mind!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is art with some stank on it.