Dolly is a 2025 horror film directed by Rod Blackhurst. It stars Fabianne Therese, Seann William Scott and Max the Impaler in the title role.
The film is about a young woman who fights for survival after being abducted by a deranged, monster-like figure who wants to raise them as their child.
Unmarked spoilers ahead.
Dolly provides examples of:
- Bittersweet Ending: Macy survives and escapes Dolly’s clutches, but her would-be fiancée Chase is dead and his daughter is now fatherless.
- Broken Faceplate: Dolly’s mask is cracked and missing an eye. It is further damaged over the course of the film.
- Credits Gag: The credits extends “no thanks whatsoever” to the Mosquito Population of Southeast Tennessee and Poison Ivy.
- Creepy Doll: In addition to their mask, Dolly has tons of dolls throughout their house and the surrounding woods.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Near the beginning of the film, Macy expresses concern about Chase’s planned proposal, stating she never wanted to be a mother and expressing worry that she might end up being like an unspecified “her,” who is described as a monster. While this is never expanded upon, an abusive upbringing would partially explain why Macy avoids panicking amidst horrific circumstances.
- Deliberate VHS Quality: The whole film has a grainy filter over it that matches its ''70's Slasher" aesthetic.
- Expy: Dolly is one to Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, being a developmentally-stunted masked killer living in a family home, the implication being that she had been part of a whole family of serial killers who pick off and torture anyone who finds themselves in their neck of the woods (literally, in this case).
- The Family That Slays Together: It's implied that a lot of Dolly's safety measures and methods of killing were taught to her by her Uncle Tobe, meaning that the whole family was in on their killings.
- Homage: To 70's-era Exploitation-Slasher Movies. It even has Deliberate VHS Quality as though it were filmed on an outdated film camera.
- Implacable Man: Dolly is stabbed and bludgeoned at various points but it has little effect on her.
- After being horribly injured and left for dead by Dolly, Chase drags himself through the woods to her house, where he reunites with Macy and provides a brief distraction so Macy can run away.
- Infantilization Horror: Dolly treats Macy like an infant and even tries to breastfeed her.
- Jawbreaker: Dolly jams a shovel into Chase’s mouth, leaving his jawbone dangling askew. Dolly later rips his jaw off entirely, finally killing him.
- Laughing Mad: Macy at the end of the film as she escapes Dolly’s clutches.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: A lot of Dolly's whole deal has a lot of mystery surrounding her. When Chase and Macy comes across the various dolls Dolly left outside, he acts as though their presence is a new phenomena despite having been on that trail before. Much like the Sawyer House in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the house is away from conventional society in the wilderness and thus goes unnoticed when people disappear, though while the Sawyer home was just another country home, Dolly's home is in the middle of a natural preserve and even has working electricity, adding further mystery to how such a place exists. For Dolly herself, she's shown to be supernaturally strong and durable, being able to shrug off stab wounds and multiple hits to the face with a shovel. When Molly manages to find a ranger and tells him about Dolly, it's implied that she's not the first person to escape, but the authorities haven't been able to find the house or any other evidence of their existence.
- Neck Lift: Dolly does this to both Chase and Macy, emphasizing her insane strength.
- Off with His Head!: Dolly dispatches of a park ranger this way.
- Perilous Marriage Proposal: The reason Chase and Macy are in the woods, though they were unaware of the peril. Dolly actually takes the engagement ring Chase had wanted to give Macy, though she recovers it by the end of the film.
- Psychopathic Manchild: A lot of Dolly's behavior implies that she's developmentally stunted and has difficulty understanding the gravity of her actions. The way she infantilizes Macy mirrors a child playing house, with her rages when Macy refuses to "play along" not to dissimilar to tantrums. It's even implied that, after her mother died, she attempted to "fix" her as though she were just another broken doll before taking her now headless, fingerless corpse to a ditch with the rest of the dolls she keeps outside.
- Shovel Strike: Dolly’s weapon of choice and often used to gruesome effect.
- The Stinger: An after-credits scene where a door opens to reveal two policemen and a third man in orange coveralls. They reveal to whoever opened the door that a “Tobe Wilkerson” has been found, along with a woman in a doll mask.
- Uncertain Doom: Macy knocks Dolly out and runs over her with the car. Dolly is unresponsive when Macy retrieves her ring, but it's not clear if she's dead or not, especially as it's also unclear if Dolly is human or supernatural. Either way, Macy escapes but not without cost.
- Uncleanliness Is Next to Ungodliness: Dolly is introduced sitting by the bed of her mother's headless, rotting corpse, flies infesting the entire room. Her hands are perpetually red from the blood of her victims, and it's implied that all the food she tried feeding Macy during "playtime" was all expired.
- Ungrateful Bastard: After convincing Macy to free him, Tobe immediately takes her hostage, implying that as soon as they get a safe enough distance from Dolly, he'll rape and kill her For the Evulz.
- Villainous Rescue: Dolly comes to Macy’s aid when Tobe has her captive.