Netflix And Chill: The Curse Of Robert The Doll (2016)

It has been about eight years since I watched Robert, a spooky doll movie made to cash in on the success of Annabelle. This was the movie for those who weren't satisfied by the shots of Annabelle sitting there and just looking spooky. This was the movie that said "of course the doll moves, and it kills, and there's no need to be ambiguous or atmospheric". Oh, and it was apparently based on a true story. Robert has since had a good four or five sequels (maybe more, maybe some are prequels, either way you can consider it a potential cash cow for someone) so I figured it was time to check out another instalment in the series.

Robert has been placed in a museum. A young woman (Emily, played by Tiffany Ceri) takes a job at that museum, spending her nightshifts cleaning the exhibit areas, and soon starts to get freaked out by the presence of the spooky doll. She has good reason to, because Robert is able to get out of his glass case and kill people. As the bodies start to pile up, Emily and the security guard she has formed a connection with (Kevin, played by Jason Homewood), needs to convince people of the reality of the situation, which coudl also convince them of her own innocence.

Once again written and directed by Andrew Jones, The Curse Of Robert The Doll is probably a tiny bit better than the first movie. Or it's maybe just as bad. I would be lying if I told you that I remember anything from my viewing of the first movie. There are at least two human characters here making a reappearance (Jenny Otto, played by Suzie Francer Garton, and a toymaker, played by Lee Bane), which makes me think that Jones has at least attempted to maintain some continuity here. Of course, that's easier to do when it's only the second movie in a series, but I've seen some sequels that immediately discarded everything we'd seen in the first movie (yes, Full Moon Features, I'm looking at you).

The acting isn't superb, but nor is it awful. One or two people stand out for the wrong reasons, but Ceri and Homewood do well enough in their roles, Steven Dolton is a typically gruff detective, and Nigel Barber enjoys a small amount of screentime as the owner of the museum that has "lucked out" in gaining possession of the deadly doll.

As well as the writing and directing duties, Jones also takes on the editing. His approach is quite crude and clumsy, and unhelped by the lacklustre cinematography from Jonathan McLaughlin or weak score from Bobby Cole, two names that appear again and again throughout the filmography of Jones.

Although it avoids being painfully bad, The Curse Of Robert The Doll is disappointingly lazy from start to finish. Even the doll itself doesn't look as scary or menacing as it could, and it doesn't have any sense of escalation. We know from the start that Robert is a dangerous killer doll, which leaves us just waiting for the main characters to get up to speed. They piece things together far too slowly, and the moments that show Robert in full-on menacing mode are just a bit silly.

3/10

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Cabin 28 (2017)

"Based on the true life murders which inspired The Strangers" - that is the main blurb written on the front cover of the DVD of Cabin 28. So if you liked The Strangers then you should very well like this film. That's the implication. The reality is that The Strangers was a competent, at times chilling, horror film. This is not. But it has killers entering a house while wearing masks. That's where the points of similarity end.

To be fair, and to start off on a positive note, this film seems to stick to the main points of the unsolved case when it comes to the details that are known. Sue (Terri Dwyer) and members of her family were staying in the cabin when it was invaded by people who viciously murdered them. And that's the good stuff out of the way.

A quick run through the filmography of director Andrew Jones shows that he has a canny knack for helming films that end up trying to cash in on some recognisable horror genre names. He did The Amityville Asylum, he did Poltergeist Activity, and he has just completed his third movie about an evil doll named Robert. All of them either insinuate that they are connected to something they really aren't or state that they are based on a true story (always something that we horror fans take with a pinch of salt anyway).

He's working here from a script by John Klyza, and neither man seems to have a clue of how to build characters or tension. It's hard enough for the film to overcome the issue that it is full of Brits pretending they're all Americans (and if there are any actual Americans in the cast, well, they can't even manage to do their own accents properly), the fact that it fails in that regard while also lacking any competence in the writing, directing, and technical departments just makes the whole thing a real chore to get through.

I can't even feel angry enough to rant about the cast. They don't do a good job, but I suspect that's largely down to the awful script and a director who has assured them that all of their accents are fine and every scene has been nailed down just as he wants it (while he looks at how fare ahead of schedule and under budget they are). Dwyer is especially poor, although she's also given more screentime than some others, but Brendee Green, Derek Nelson, Lee Bane, Gareth Lawrence, Jason Homewood, and Ryan Michaels all give very weak performances.

You might spy this cover, see a low price, and think it can't be that bad. It can. You might think it's at least worth having on your shelf until an evening when you have nothing better available to watch. There's always something better available to watch. You may receive it as a gift from someone who knows you're a horror fan. Unfriend that person, move, and never let them discover your new address. Alternatively, regift it to someone you dislike. You get the picture.

2/10

The disc is available here.
Or, if in America, here.