Demond Doll (1987)

... aka: Doll, The

... aka: Hell Doll

... aka: Infernal Doom

... aka: Joker, The

... aka: Muerte infernal (Infernal Death)

Directed by:

Roberto Guinar (uncredited)

Ronald Wertheim

According to Señor Hernandez over at Trash-Mex, who was able to speak to the film's producer, this ultra-obscure curio was filmed in English in Mexico City in the late 80s. It was released theatrically in the U.S. soon after by Great World Pictures out of Los Angeles. Don't worry, I've never heard of them before either. The poster has an R rating on it which, unless they're lying (wouldn't be the first time), means it had been submitted to the MPAA. After what one can assume was an extremely limited theatrical run, the film was never released on VHS here in the U.S. but did turn up on home video in Mexico in 1992. Without the producer's authorization, someone had gotten their hands on it, re-dubbed it into Spanish and re-titled it Muerte infernal ("Infernal Death"). 

Nearly two decades later, the original English-language version mysteriously surfaced again, this time being hawked on DVD-R by bootleggers under another new title (Hell Doll). This cut also contains extra scenes (including stock footage of bullfighting and Brazilian Carnival dancers) that had been removed from the Mexican VHS version. At around the same time, Guinar uploaded a (rather sloppily put together) two minute trailer for "Hell Doll" to his Youtube page, which can be viewed RIGHT HERE.

While this is currently listed nearly everywhere as a 1992 release under the Muerte infernal title, I'm going to roll with 1987 per the end credits copyright date and use the title on the original U.S. theatrical poster, Demond Doll. And, yes, even having to type out "Demond" irks the hell out of me. I want to call this "Demon Doll" so damn bad. Was it supposed to be "Demondoll," one word, and they accidentally added an extra d? Was it actually supposed to be "Demond" and, if so, what does that even mean? Figuring this was just a word I'd never heard of before, I tried to translate it (nope) and look it up (nada). The only thing I came up with was "a boy's name of American origin that means 'of man'". What am I missing here folks?

Attractive young widow Julia Mercero (Erika Carlsson - THE DRACULA DYNASTY) runs "The House of Dolls" shop out of her home, along with her grown son Lawrence (Benny Corral), who designs creepy masks. Right away, you can tell this isn't your usual mother / son relationship, at least not outside of Appalachia. She longingly watches him as he washes up and parades around the home in a negligee. He's needy, overly sensitive, whines like a young child ("Ma-ma-mommy please!") and can't seem to keep his hands off of her. The two run their fingers through each other's hair and over each other's faces, hug, hold hands, rub noses, kiss on the lips, lie on bed together in each other's arms and do other icky things.

Even though these two clearly share too much already, one thing mom's not ready to divulge is what's really in a large wooden box with holes drilled in it down in the store room. She claims it's a wedding keepsake, "a very special doll," gifted to her from her late husband, who died before Lawrence was even born. When the son asks, "Is he big?" her face lightens up as she responds "He is!" Since he has the maturity level of a young child, Lawrence refuses to STFU about the doll, driving his mum crazy in the process. After she loses it and goes off on him, he has a tantrum and runs away.

Lawrence goes to visit his female friend, Margaret (Sandra Felix), a costume designer, who's been helping him put on weird "theater" performances in the living room for the mom. When Margaret comes on to him, he finds himself unable to have sex with her. He runs back home and starts sobbing, but thankfully his mother is around to comfort him. And, by "comfort," I unfortunately mean making out with him and allowing him to fondle her breasts and crotch (!!) Oh yeah, and the doll is finally allowed out of the box. Said doll, called Yerzo (Aurelio Pérez), is played by a heavily painted-up dwarf in a medieval jester outfit, a pageboy wig and silver sequin gloves (!) that, according to a note left with it, houses the spirit of a man who'd been executed for "sexual atrocities" by a king's court long ago.

After word gets round about Lawrence's impotence, two bullies berate him and throw both him and his bicycle into a fountain. He responds to that by riding off the edge of a bridge and ends up on suicide watch at a nuthouse under the care of doctors Emmanuel Richter (Roger Cudney) and Holly O'Hara (Yria Bazegui). Per hospital rules, he's not allowed any visitors, including his mother, but they do allow him some things from home, including Yerzo, who comes in handy when a nympho nurse ("Hellen Goyas" / Ellen Gollas) sneaks into his room and tries to molest him. Instead, she ends up getting her clothes ripped off and bludgeoned with a puppet head by the "doll."

The plot starts to sputter a bit after Lawrence escapes the institution and disappears from most of the rest of the film. Focus then mostly swings over to the two doctors and their relationship, which seems like an excuse to squeeze in an awkward sex scene. After the male half dies of a heart attack because someone put a skeleton at his front door (!), the female doctor attempts to help Julia, while the Margaret character comes back into the picture and tries to befriend her. Whatever they were trying to do here, it doesn't really work.

Occasionally this will cut to the son and the doll laughing maniacally, wagging their tongues and making strange noises. A despondent-looking Lawrence is briefly seen sitting on the patio wearing a short cami dress (!) while the dwarf attempts to sexually assault Dr. O'Hara and then attacks her with a knife while she runs around her home topless and screaming. The ending suggests that not everything is what it seems, but it's too muddled to really tell for sure.

Though obviously low budget and highly flawed, this is saved to an extent because it just does its own trashy, outrageous, bizarre thing and becomes a kind of singular warped vision in the process. Parts of it are genuinely creepy and disturbing while others are clearly played for laughs or downright dumb. One thing it's generally not, is predictable.

There's some decent camerawork prowling around the home looking at creepy dolls and masks, plus two very bizarre original songs ("The Joker" and "Hungerin'") written by the director and featuring the vocals of leads Corral (who does some spoken word thing) and Carlsson (who actually sings). I had to settle for watching the cut Spanish dubbed version since I couldn't find the English one. In the process I did miss a flashback scene showing the dwarf slicing off a woman's breast while wearing a powdered wig.

So who actually directed this thing? Mex-Trash refers to Roberto Guinar as the "writer, producer and co-director." However, he's only listed as the producer on the poster, and is only listed in the on-screen credits as producer and actor (for a cameo appearance as a delivery man). The actual credited director and writer is Ronald Wertheim, who has a filmography of soft and hardcore porn stretching all the way back the late 60s. He wrote classic era adult films like Memories Within Miss Aggie (1974) and Through the Looking Glass (1976) and was the production manager (and also appears in) Deep Throat (1972). In an interview with Rialto Report, a former associate described Wertheim as being "clearly mentally unstable."

Credited with the "original idea" is Alfred Salazar, who I have no doubt in my mind is actually the prolific  Alfredo Salazar, a man who had his hand in all kinds of Mexican films as far back as the late 1940s. He wrote the AZTEC MUMMY (1957) series, the Jekyll & Hyde inspired THE MAN AND THE MONSTER (1959), lots of wrestling movies starring Las Luchadoras or Santo and, fittingly enough, CURSE OF THE DOLL PEOPLE (1961). Salazar also directed a handful of films, including the weird THE RIDER OF THE SKULLS (1965), the pervy A RAT IN THE DARKNESS (1979) and Diabolical Inheritance (1993), which is yet another dwarf-playing-a-killer-doll flick that also happens to star Guinar. I guess Salazar could be considered the Mexican answer to Charles Band with his doll fetish.

Also quite interesting that Carlsson, Corral, Cudney and Gollas all appeared in the Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi hit Total Recall a few years later. There really has to be some kind of interesting story there. Corral would go on to become one of the top music video directors in Latin America and has worked with Mark Anthony, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Julio Iglesias and many others over the years. Considering how most people who make it in show business like to hide their association with films like this later on, Corral amusingly lists this film twice on his resume, first as a 1989 film called "The Jocker" (sic) and directed by Wertheim, and then under the 1992 Muerte infernal title and directed by Guinar.

★★1/2

Violated! (1974)

... aka: Hollywood Ripper, The

... aka: Rapist, The

Directed by:

Albert Zugsmith

Say whatever you want about him, but not many exploitation directors could boast the credentials Zugsmith had. After becoming independently wealthy working "straight" jobs in marketing, publishing and sales, Zugsmith (by then in middle age) set out to fulfill his dream of becoming a filmmaker in the early 1950s. He co-founded his own production company, landed a contract with RKO and directed three low budget films for them. The surprise box office success of his Invasion U.S.A. (1952) led to major studio interest and contracts for MGM, Allied Artists and Universal. During his time working for the latter, he had his hand in quite a few now-classic films. He produced the well-regarded Douglas Sirk melodramas Written on the Wind (1956), which was a big hit, and The Tarnished Angels (1957), as well as the classic The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), which would go on to become one of the highest grossing genre films of the entire decade. Most notably, however, he was instrumental in bringing Orson Welles' film noir classic Touch of Evil (1958) to the screen. Though it was initially a disappointment at the box office, Touch is now considered a masterpiece and frequently pops up on all-time best lists. It was also deemed culturally and artistically significant enough to be selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in just their fifth year.

The "respectable" portion of Zugsmith's career virtually disappeared during his MGM years, namely because of his continued work with platinum blonde bombshell Mamie Van Doren, one of a gazillion Marilyn Monroe wannabes who were never able to compete with the real thing. Going from Welles and Sirk to flops like The Private Lives of Adam and Eve and Sex Kittens Go to College in just a few short years was quite the fall from grace. By the end of the 60s, Zugsmith was making straight-up soft-core porn (Sappho Darling; Two Roses & a Golden Rod) and heading down to Mexico to make the barely-released psychedelic horror flick The Chinese Room (1968) and the failed western-comedy The Phantom Gunslinger (1970). After trying to capitalize on the Manson Family murders with the sleazy The Cult (1971, aka The Manson Massacre), he finally bowed out for good with this nasty little rape-revenge film starring a bunch of hardcore porn performers.

Britt-Mari Nilsson, the Swedish-born wife of producer Roger Gentry, opens the film as the latest unfortunate victim of a victim-mutilating rapist who's recently been terrorizing Tinseltown and dons a different rubber Halloween mask for each attack. After stalking her around Hollywood Boulevard for a bit, the psycho turns up at her home later that night and attacks her after a swim. She's pulled into a gazebo, has her bikini ripped off, is raped (the assaulter doesn't bother to remove his pants) and then gets her face sliced up with a switchblade. Hilariously, a later radio broadcast will describe the thirty-something Nilsson as a "12 year old girl" (!) and also claims that the psycho's hallmark is carving a swastika on his victims' bodies.

We then meet Terry Murphy, who's played by prolific sex film star Rene Bond. Because of her hectic dating life, Terry brushes off potential suitor Quentin Judson ("Billy Buzby" / Jay Scott), then returns to her apartment where she strips out of her red vinyl mini-skirt and go-go boots and hops into the shower. The masked psycho (now wearing a devil mask), cuts through her shower curtain, pulls her to the ground, rapes her, knocks her out and then carves up her chest. The following day, asshole detective Sgt. Purvis (!) (uncredited Wes Bishop) shows up and chastises her about not reporting the crime sooner. He suggests she's making it all up and informs her that no one will take her claims seriously because she makes money selling ads in a sex paper and is an attractive young woman that juries would find hard to sympathize with. (Sadly, some of these observations are quite true to life.).

It's revealed that just fifteen minutes after she was attacked, Quentin was pulled over by cops half a block from Terry's house for speeding and had a knife in his possession. Terry refuses to believe it could have been him. Even though he's a 'Nam vet, he's a "gentle soul" who loves small animals, reads poetry out loud and "practically lives on strawberry yogurt and sunflower seeds" (?) Angry that she's now "damaged goods on the marriage market," Terry vows to apprehend the killer herself if the stupid cops can't do it. And apparently they can't since an Asian secretary is attacked about two minutes later, bringing the victim total to over 30.

When she isn't merrily bouncing around hippie coffee house trying to sell books, Midge Lewis is a college student who has been busy "studying psychopaths in my psych class." But that does nothing to prepare her for her encounter with the real-life psycho, who chloroforms her, pulls her into a van, shackles her by the wrists and ankles and does his usual carve job on her thigh. Midge is played by the attractive but apparently one-and-done Susanne Suzan. Whoever Ms. Suzan is, she was also the associate producer, takes top billing, refuses to do any nudity (unlike her co-stars), seems European in origin (maybe she was real-life friends with Britt-Mari) and delivers all of her dialogue in a monotone with a very thick accent.

After a parade of other victims, including porn star Sandra Dempsey (SEX AND THE SINGLE VAMPIRE) getting punched in the face and her top ripped open, and a black woman who offends the rapist by getting turned on by his attack, leading to her being beaten unconscious (!), this finally starts to settle into something resembling a plot. Terry, with assist from Quentin (who's out to prove his innocence to her) and an apprehensive Midge (who frowns upon torture since her father was a Jewish concentration camp survivor), decides she's going to lure the chief suspects to her home and then try to use "psychological torment" to force a confession out of one of them. The two chief suspects are sleazy, skirt-chasing television repairman John Murphy (Jerry Delony) and child-like, mother-obsessed linoleum installer Stan Driscoll (Ric Lutze).

With lots of nudity (though perhaps less than one would expect given the plot and cast), scenes that alternate between dull (most of the cop / interrogation scenes), amusing and disturbing, enthusiastic yet highly variable performances and a crazed finale that includes kidnapping, necrophilia, torture with pliers, a knife, a blowtorch and a homemade electric chair (!), this is a very entertaining piece of grindhouse trash.

Fans of Bond will definitely want to check this out. I've seen her in other things before but not anything where she had the lead role and was actually asked to act. In addition to providing the expected full frontal nudity here, she actually chips in a surprisingly fun performance, especially the more unhinged her character gets. You don't exactly have to be Meryl Streep to carry a movie like this, you just need to be into what you're doing, and Bond clearly is. Only four other actors are credited, but much of the supporting cast comes from the Lee Frost cinematic universe. There are small parts for Gentry, Marland Proctor (also the production manager), Phil Hoover and Vincent Barbi. Most of the actresses playing victims remain unknown.

Though this is currently listed as a 1975 release on IMDb, the copyright date is 1973 and the film was playing as early as October 1974 in Chicago. It was almost always on some kind of double bill and newspaper ads show it was paired with a wide variety of other films, including the Italian crime drama Execution Squad (1972), the Exorcist copy BEYOND THE DOOR (1974) and the Russ Meyer-directed sexploitation film Common Law Cabin (1967). It was later reissued to theaters under the new title The Hollywood Ripper.

Long thought lost, this finally turned up on the ten film Vinegar Syndrome box set "Lost Picture Show," which, for once, really did include a bunch of absolute rarities. The other titles of interest to horror fans in the set include Red Midnight (1966), Beware the Black Widow (1968), Las Vegas Strangler (1968; originally called No Tears for the Damned) and The Sex Serum of Dr. Blake (1973; aka Voodoo Heartbeat).

★★1/2