Snap Review of ‘Black Devil Doll’
Posted by Nick Ondras on February 27, 2010 at 2:00 am
I’m unsure quite when this movie was dumped onto DVD. IMDb says 2007; although I’m told it made its world premiere at the New Beverly Theater in Los Angeles in April and has since then played at numerous film festivals. I need to thank /Film writer Hunter Stephenson for turning me onto the movie. After seeing the balls-out insanity that was Black Devil Doll’s trailer I was really excited to check it out. After having finally tracked a copy down, I watched it when I was sick at home last week. Successfully viewing this movie in its entirety and letting it sit in my stomach for a few days, I can honestly say that I would rather have pneumonia than watch this movie again.
Supporting independent films is something I think everybody should do once in a while if not whenever you get a chance to. In fact, Black Devil Doll makes a joke at the beginning of not pirating indie flicks such as itself because it’s such a dying industry already. Jonathan Lewis isn’t a pioneer of individual filmography. Devil Doll is his directorial debut after acting in two movies that aren’t ringing any bells for me. However this is also a good thing. I can’t tell you how many movies I’ve seen without any big names attached that have impressed me, and even go on to be some of my favorite films of all time. With all this in mind, I eagerly popped this into the DVD player I have in my living room only to quickly shut it off. It wasn’t because its quality was bad (yet), it was because it starts off so crudely there’s no way I could have viewed it in daylight hours in a house populated by five other people. In this review I’ll try hard not to reveal any of the bits Black Devil Doll has in store for you, but I will tell you what makes it so bad.
Black Devil Doll is about a convicted African-American rapist who when executed in an electric chair is transported into the body of a ventriloquist dummy. Meanwhile a teenager Heather is bored one Saturday night, so she decides to play with an Ouija board. Believing this to be the reason of the rapist’s soul extortion, she falls in love with him. From then on, the movie divulges into a giant sex orgy between the two of them. And not once does Shawn Lewis and Mitch Mayes’s screenplay explain why repeatedly calling her a “bitch”, telling her to give him oral pleasure, and openly admitting that he did indeed violate fifteen (!) teen girls makes Heather fall in love with the doll. Although one could also argue that it doesn’t make any sense for an Ouija board to summon the deceased into a three-foot piece of wood. That’s reasonable. My problem, however, with Black Devil Doll lies not with its believability. Going into a movie as stupid as this I expected plot holes galore with a storyline that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. This isn’t supposed to be the most dynamic directing, the best screenwriting, or the most spectacular acting. What I did want from Black Devil Doll though was a cool premise (check) and a decent-enough execution, which is where it failed entirely.
Black Devil Doll mocks its X-rating (or whatever rating it got; the DVD says it doesn’t have one) before the film even starts, saying it was graded by an “all-white jury”. Had the movie stayed with that attitude throughout the rest of the movie, it could have been as fun a blacksploitation as Black Dynamite, which also came out in 2009. I don’t want to be the person who gets offended by this and calls it “dumb” without having a logical reason to back up that reasoning, but this movie is, however, extremely dumb. The dialogue is so forced it’s unbearable. Not once, not even twice, but seven times do I see this hand puppet ejaculate in graphic detail. It’s disgusting, that’s what I’m getting at. Black Devil Doll isn’t an exact genre film because it never mocks the main character’s ethnicity like blacksploitation movies usually do. Or we think they do. What makes those types of movies hysterical is the audacity of their stories, which is something that Black Dynamite fully understood and made a great spoof of without coming across as idiotic. Black Devil Doll evolves into something less than a movie.
The acting, like I previously said, is atrocious. Do I care too much about that, though? Not really, but when your consolidated “joke” is for the women to be so attractive it’s “hot” (I guess?) when we see them in the shower or getting a tan, or later even stabbed with a butchers knife. That sounds irrelevant but that’s what Lewis is trying to do here; it’s foolish! These girls are so slutty it’s unbearable. There are countless uncomfortable scenes in which Heather is penetrated by this black devil doll, none of which are remotely necessary. God, I almost threw up watching this pig eat two Big Macs and then in its conclusion rip her shirt open and show us everything. I don’t know who the hell this movie was made for but I guess it wasn’t me. This isn’t a horror movie, it’s not a comedy; it’s nothing. Black Devil Doll is pornography that tosses a little gore into the mix. I haven’t said this about a movie in a long time, but this is such a piece of crap that I hated it.
½ a star out of five stars.
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“I don’t know who the hell this movie was made for but I guess it wasn’t me.”
Exactly. Black Devil Doll was not made for you or any other 15 year old red-headed step child.
@Shawn My week has been made!
@Shawn @Mitch I could be a fat, virgin ginger who sits at home in his underwear and masturbates to kitty porn. You still made a bad movie. You guys need to learn how to take constuctive criticism, or you will never make it in Hollywood.
Thanks so much for commenting, both of you. We’re getting a TON of traffic to the site!
You guys need a bit thicker skin. Either that or make a better movie, LOL
Shawn, what might your target audience be, pedophiles? And honestly, you need to grow up. I can’t believe you actually wrote a movie, based on the fact you are spending your time bashing a 14 year old because he critiqued your movie. I always figured the people who call kids homos and tell them to go suck a dick OVER THE INTERNET were all immature 10 year olds who thought they were cool by saying that, but now I see even grown men do it.
Thanks for enlightening me Shawn & Mich
You’re welcome.
Kenny, do you sense even the slightest hint of irony when you tell 2 grown men that made a movie like “Black Devil Doll” to grow up?
This is amazing. You know what? I think I love this movie now.
@Shawn @Mitch Do you guys really think I’m offended by making fun of the fact I have red hair? God, I hear so much shit every day about that. You guys really aren’t even doing a good job at offending me.
No no, scratch that. Your piece of shit movie offended me pretty well. Truly a load of crap.
Shawn and Mitch, have you gone to every single bad review of your excuse for a movie and spent this much time failing to defend it?
@Shawn and @Mitch, who exactly is your target audience? Baked 30-year-olds still living with their parents who at 2 A.M. find a ventriloquist dummy masturbating funny and a three-minute rendezvous of girls washing a car hot? That’s really sad.
@Shawn and @Mitch As co-founder of TheMovieBanter, Nick is a hard working kid who writes very passionately. I have not seen your movie, and never will. Although Nick and I don’t always agree on movies, he is free to write however he likes about a movie he sees, and we completely support him in doing so. To go out of your way to bash a kid in High School over his opinion of your movie is not only completely unprofessional but also just wrong. I’m sure James Cameron went to make fun of of high school kid’s hair on a blog if they gave Avatar a bad review too, but let’s get real. This is his opinion, and instead of trying to bash an innocent kid, maybe offer some additional information to shed light and a different perspective about the movie so he could see a certain angle at how and why you created the movie the way it is. If you have any additional comments, feel free to contact me at craig@themoviebanter.com
Thanks, Craig. @Shawn and @Mitch, feel free to email me too at nickondras@rocketmail.com.
@Mitch & Shawn
This is Matt Rosenberg, also a co-founder of the site and Vice President of TheMovieBanter, Inc.
While you guys do have the right to comment as you see fit, we reserve the right to remove offensive and abusive posts.
You guys just went out of your way to insult a teenager who is writing his honest opinion. That shows little class.
Nick is a big asset to our team, and an insult to him is an insult to us. This type of posting is not tolerated on our site. Either start posting under the rules of our site or leave.
@Nick @Craig
What hypocrisy. You guys speak of professionalism and constructive criticism, yet this review (quite blatantly, and rudely) insults the girls in this film– and I quote, “These girls are so slutty it’s unbearable”, and “God, I almost threw up watching this pig eat two Big Macs”.
Since when is something like this considered a professional review?
As an actress in the movie, I have absolutely NO problem with negative reviews. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and I enjoy reading all of them, good or bad. This film is obviously not for everyone; but if you’re going to take the time to do a review, please be professional about it– even if you hated it. Otherwise, whats the point of wasting even an ounce of your energy on it? So you can make people feel bad?
Congratulations.
wow…. that was pretty sad. @Shawn last time I checked south park wasnt an encylopdia about peoples social standing.
@Jack Thanks, man.