Black Devil Doll From Hell (1984)

[Scottie]

I caught a VHS screening of this film tonight at the Alamo Drafthouse, Ritz in Austin, Texas. In a sentence, this film is about "a demonic puppet who turns a religious woman away from God with sex." He kills her in the end though, oh and another woman too. The film is an amazing piece of 1984 history. It has a humble story. Shot on VHS and edited using tape to tape technology directly to VHS, only around 500 copies were dubbed and distributed to mom and pop stores in the country. It's the story of a woman, black, who finds a black ventriloquist dummy in an antique shop and buys it despite being warned that it had been bought four time earlier and returned four times. Through a series of scares and naked shower scenes the puppet comes to full life and ties down and seduces the church-going woman and turns her sex crazed. The puppet sex is so good that the woman wakes up the next day and when she discovers the puppet gone, she goes around trying to find a man to satisfy her need. But the puppet sex was too good. Nothing will satisfy her like the puppet. So she goes back to the antique store and finds the puppet back on the shelves and she buys it again. She takes it home and removes all her clothes, begging for the puppet to have sex with her again. And when she threatens him, the puppet uses mind control and chokes her to death.

First of all, the film was shot and edited on VHS so the quality is lacking, understandably. But when the puppet comes to life it calls the woman a b***h, a ho, a slut and then has sex with her, sometimes even showing closeups of the puppet's face during the sex. The voice is gravelly, like a skinny Fat Albert kind of voice. When the puppet walks around it is doubled by a small child wearing white gloves with really silly results. The puppet breathes out smoke when it is angry. It even breathes out smoke on the girl at one point while she is tied up, just so she can smell his horrible breath. And this is all shot on VHS so the quality is lacking, understandably. The puppet is even given a long wooden tongue that he uses to lick the girl's nipples and chest and turn her on. And the girl totally sells the role. She moans and whines and begs for more when the puppet tells her to beg. It's amazing.

Apparently the only ways to see this film are to buy it on ebay for a ridiculous sum of money that no film of this caliber should ever command, you can find it with blind luck at your favorite mom and pop shop, or you can happen to know someone who wants to show it unannounced and unpromoted somewhere. I was lucky and saw it the third way in an actual theatre. It's worth seeing for its sheer puppet/human sexual audacity, for its short length, and also because it constitutes half of the director's ouevre. The other half, you ask? Why it's "Tales from the Quadead Zone"... a three part film. You figure it out.

5 out of 10.

[RCMerchant]

I've read about this movie in the PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO GUIDE.....I even saw a picture of it in some magazine...amazing!    I think it may be bought from SHOCKING VIDEO-I'll have to take a look-see!

[Ash]

The Badmovies.org Myspace page has a friend in the top 40 list by the name of Black Devil Doll. 
Here's their Myspace page



I'd always assumed it was an original and had never heard of the 1984 version until now.
After some reading, I learned that this is a new film and a remake.

http://blackdevildoll.com/

The thought of a posessed black puppet running around killing people just seems hilarious to me.  
-----------------------------------

Oh by the way, here's a clip from the original Black Devil Doll From Hell.
It's awful!  That horrible music!  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isr6ueMur6U

[inframan]

I was there last night too.

As far as the overall quality of the film making this may be the worst movie I've ever seen. But the result is hilarious. The extra loud Casio keyboard soundtrack really brings home the homemade fell. I'm not talking cheesey synth music, they used an actual casio keyboard, probably a really cheap one too.

The puppet rape/sex scene has to be seen to be believed. I've know some people are wierded out by ventriliquist dummies, show them this movie and they'll probably never talk to you agian.

This site has a few screen shots: http://blackhorrormovies.com/blackdevildoll.htm

[Bonehead-XL]

As awful as this movie is, it is some sort of bizarre masterpiece of homegrown weirdness. And if there are those of you out there that have to see the film but can't find a rental or original VHS copy, it's pretty heavily bootlegged. Just do a Google search. Not that I promot that sort of behaviour. Ah-hum. 

[TheDope]

Own it.   

Everything that has been said about this film is true: 100%.  And as far as quality goes, you couldn't sink any lower unless you made your own film with an old 16mm hand-held camera and a Kermit The Frog doll.

However, the bad-movie charm is there.  Someone thought the story was worth filming.  Someone thought a whiny keyboard was perfect music accompaniment.  Someone thought a Rastafarian Jerry Mahoney dummy was scary.  Someone thought a popsicle stick and glue was good enough for a dummy's drooling tongue.  Someone even thought the ending of this film was perfect in its unfinished ambiguity.

Someone was wrong.

However, thank god for that someone (Chester R. Turner) because this is a film that is SO bad, it may well be the funniest comedy of 1984 - or any other year.

P.S.: if there is anyone else here who happens to own a DVD-R of BDDFH, needs a cover for their case of it and happens to have a Flickr account, knock yourself out.   

[Scottie]

Inframan,

Did you notice the mispellings mentioned at the beginning of the show? I only saw "phography" in place of photography during the end credits but I did see the color bars at the end of the tape, which I thought was a nice technical touch for all those home VCR owners with a penchant for proper video signal. I also loved how between credits you could see the warble of the VCR heads coming into contact with the tape as they engaged with a new credit. VCR to VCR. Gotta love it.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Scottie,

You have peaked my curiosity with this film.  Sounds absolutely awful and worth hunting down.

[dload]

does anyone remember an older movie (probably from the mid to late 70's) that was also of a black doll, but it was more of an African or voodoo type doll, not a ventriliquist dummy? I have been trying to find out what the name of that was and dredge up some details of it. I remeber when I was a kid, it would show on weekend afternoon TV movie spots on occasion (this would have been in the early 80's). Any info appreciated.

[Doc Daneeka]

I think what the above poster is looking for is TRILOGY OF TERROR

[inframan]

Yeah thats probably it, check that link I posted to blackhorrormovies.com, pretty funny site.

I didnt notice any other misspelling in the titles, they were definately edited vcr to vcr.

[Trekkie313]

http://thecinemasnob.com/2009/08/16/black-devil-doll-from-hell.aspx

[The Burgomaster]

http://geektyrant.com/news/2010/8/14/chester-turners-black-devil-doll-from-hell-coming-to-dvd-thi.html

I see no evidence this actually got released on October 26.  Too bad.

[Trekkie313]

I'm surprised no one else but me thinks that the puppet is possessed by a coked up Rick James?

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

I'm surprised no one else but me thinks that the puppet is possessed by a coked up Rick James?

Yeah, all it has to do now is walk around going " I'm The Black Devil Doll, b*tch!"   

I've only ever  heard of this one, and now that I've heard a bit more about it now that it's existence is confirmed, I'll HAVE to see this one....