The Bannisters - father Kenneth (Grant Kempster), mother Mary (Susan Lee Burton), and daughters Dotty (Emmeline Kellie), Sherry (Chloe Badham) and little Molly (Tiana Rogers) - have a very nice Christmas, with only Sherry feeling slightly off, as she thinks she saw the doll Molly got as a present moving on its own. And when she arrives at her own home that night, the same doll is already waiting for her, and ultimately kills her. Dad arrives a tad too late to save her, but he swears it was the doll who killed Sherry.

6 months later, Kenneth and Mary have separated because she holds him responsible for Sherry's death (though he was acquitted in court), and Molly has been acting mighty weird of late, so weird that she has to be put on medication. And then Mary thinks she's going crazy, as she thinks she sees the doll moving as well, but her rational mind tells her this cannot be ... until Dotty confirms what she had thought to be illusions - and from here on, things go bad, very bad ...

So ok, this film does show certain parallels to the Child's Play movies, so much so that one of the characters in the movie makes a throwaway remark about them, but at the same time, The Bannister DollHouse has a strong enough script to stand on its own, one that might not reinvent the wheel but puts a bunch of established horror themes into a very original context. And add to that the very atmospheric directorial effort, complete with Mj Dixon's trademark play with the colour scale, and a strong cast, and you're in for a piece of top notch genre entertainment.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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