BLACK DEVIL DOLL: Black is beautiful! Power to the puppet!

BLACK DEVIL DOLL
Starring Heather Murphy, Natasha Talonz, Christine Svendsen
Directed by Jonathan Lewis
Rotten Cotton
Review by Louis Fowler

I like my movies like I like my coffee: strong, black and violating dead white women.

OK, so that's a lie. I don't like coffee. But I do love the hilariously daring and viciously offensive low-budget blaxploitation-horror-comedy BLACK DEVIL DOLL, which achieves all these aforementioned things in spades, no pun intended. I can easily say, without reservation, this is going to be my favorite film of the year. This isn't some novelty genre mash-up: this is a new trash classic that will become the ultimate party film—even if that party is just you and your equally geeky cine-buddy sitting around downing grape Shastas and scarfing fried grilled chicken.

But where is the press for it? Where is the fandom from the genre community? Is your liberal white guilt telling you over and over to ignore it? On many of the horror websites and magazines I write for, everyone is creaming their jeans over such super-serious slash ultra-pretentious masturbatory fare as the brutally graphic (and brutally unlikable) torture-fest MARTYRS or the emo-Swedish pedophile-vamp downer LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. Literally...creaming. While I'm sure those are “classy” meditations on man's inhumanity to man and so on, sweet Lord are they boring! You can have them! They are not “entertaining”. No matter how you slice them, they are struggles and chores to sit through. You watch them once and forget about them. You set it and forget it!

Sure, when I watch horror films I like my blood and gore as much as the next guy, but I also want laughs. And Russ Meyer boobs. And offensive racial humor. And, if possible, some salad tossing. Why is this so difficult to get? Why is this so much to ask for? And why are films that deliver this looked down upon? BLACK DEVIL DOLL has more inventiveness, style and pure love for the blaxploitation 'n' horror 'n' nudie genres than any of those recently lauded films—or, well, really any films in current circulation really—combined. DOLL goes out of it's way to entertain you, to shock you, to make you laugh. It succeed on every level. I can already tell you're gonna hate it...

A militant black activist, just put to death in the Big House for killing numerous Caucasian women, is miraculously brought back to life in a plastic “dummy” that resembles Lester (of Willie Tyler fame) after reading the complete works of Iceberg Slim. The doll belongs to the wonderfully voluptuous Heather, who has no problem accepting the Black Devil Doll into her heart and womb, as they have numerous carnal couplings that not only rivals but obliterates the puppet-sex in TEAM AMERICA. Soon enough, the Doll's blood-lust for dead white women returns and Heather invites her equally mega-super-bosomed pals over for some car-washing and showering and bathing and boob cleanings. The amount of puppet-semen spilled during these scenes is immeasurable but very important to the plot. Very. You'll never stick your hand up a puppet's ass the same way again!

In the past, I've usually had to go to Troma for this kind of hilariously sick entertainment and, to be fair, POULTRYGEIST was my favorite film of last year. But, as a generation weaned on this type of low-to-no budget horror-humor comes into it's own—a cooler generation with a working fringe sense of humor and an understanding of genre before the TWILIGHT revolution—we're starting to see more young filmmakers make their own push-it-to-the-limit flicks. And leading the pack is Jonathan Lewis, the director who I am convinced is the bloody butt-baby of Rudy Ray Moore and Lloyd Kaufman. (I'm sure he'll take that as a compliment.) Get out of this guy's way, because he is gonna cut you!

Now I know that the racial humor will be the ultimate sticky-wicket for most viewers. Most of today's kids have been raised by a media and pop culture that refuses to let us laugh at our differences and stereotypes, except in the simplest of terms, like, say, in movies such as SOUL PLANE or whatever the Wayans Brothers are currently excreting into our cineplexes. It's never anything, you know, deep. Never anything that pushes the limits. BLACK DEVIL DOLL doesn't push the limits, it pisses on them.

It's almost like you can't get away with destroying boundaries—especially racial boundaries—anymore because of the hyper-sensitive WHITE politicos who think that we should keep this stuff hidden behind a curtain, never to be seen, never to be acknowledged, even in the name of subversive comedy. They're the ones who chastise Chris Rock for being too “edgy”. I like to think that this is director Lewis's, who is black, mind you, way of gleefully shoving his ebony middle-finger in their faces, telling them to get their asses back to their hypocritical gated community if they can't take the joke. Close the shades, lock the doors and put 9-1-1 on the speed dial, because the scary black man is laughing at you—not with you—and having his way with your daughter! (Oh God, I don't even want to go into what the feminists will think about this movie...needless to say they'll be twice as humorless about it.)

Contrary to what Mr. Scott-Heron believes, the revolution will most definitely be televised and this will be shown on repeat. See BLACK DEVIL DOLL by any means necessary or be left behind, honky!