It’s very difficult to know where to begin reviewing a film like Fetish Dolls Die Laughing (FDDL) and more importantly what tone to take. On the one hand, it is not easy making a film, even a rubbish one, and a fair amount of time, money and effort has clearly gone into this. Well, time and effort at any rate. Okay, time. Point is, small independent films should be encouraged, and those who make them should be given every opportunity to succeed. And on the other hand, disregarding the damage a negative review can do to a small film, anything else would be doing this film a grave disservice. Fans of films like Birdemic and The Room will tell you it is precisely because they are so bad that they are so good, which may or may not be the case, it certainly, however, doesn’t change the fact that they are bad to begin with. Lumping FDDL in with those other two films would be to give it a label and the attention it clearly does not deserve This is not because it is cheap (el Mariachi), and not because it is badly acted or written (many great Westerns) although it is indeed all of these of things, but rather, because it is lazy and everybody involved looks like they don’t much care. So yes, that’s the initial conundrum solved then.
Directed by David Silvio, about whom IMDB throws up scant information other than a video shot in 2004 called ‘Meat for Satan’s Icebox’, FDDL is certainly a commendable early feature, and as early films go in general, it’s definitely not the worst, but it does suffer from the usual early/amateur problems. A (very, very) limited budget, near non-professional (or conscious) actors and inept crew are only every going to supply a substandard product.
But, having said all that and in the interests of fairness, let’s give a go shall we.
I knew I was in for a long ride the moment the opening credit sequence rolled. Dreadful sub-80s Goth/synth plays over motion-blurred, smoky 70s neon titles, looking very much like a David Lynch film would, were somebody else directing it.
We then get an opening scene straight out of any number of other slasher films, involving a dodgy, slightly slutty babysitter on the phone to her boyfriend. She is then attacked by a man in bad make-up (not even ‘Coming to get you, Barbara’ bad) who fondles her badly and judging by what we can see, ineffectually. This is halted abruptly, because we cut to the child to be babysat, talking to his grandmother, who looks like David Cross dressed up as Anne Ramsay, about how scared he is of the Tickle Monster. The babysitter runs away through the woods but is caught by the Tickle Monster (it is he), oddly, outside the house she was going to, and, yes, tickled to death, splurting cherry cool-aid from her mouth as she dies. So far so bad, but the real horror is yet to come.
The film then, for the next 100 minutes or so, alternates between a few storylines that are only really superficially related, one of which could be cut altogether, and uses as dividers some truly dreadful dream sequencers, All in good time.
The first thread follows a headstrong, beautiful, young policewoman named Greer English (?) who puts herself in danger to get the job done and doesn’t mind taking risks, and if those desk-jockeys up at city hall don’t…you get the idea. She and her dreadful partner bicker and engage in banter lifted from spoofs of ‘Silence of the Lambs’ whilst they attempt to solve the case of the bridesmaid murders (rendered on screen with seemingly as little violence as possible – and virtually no tension) and then becomes embroiled in the Tickle Monster murder case.
The second thread is the more important, which focusses on Billy Tagg (played by, Michael McGovern, yet another unfortunately bearded, less than tall, overweight, fantasy-fuelled psychopath) married to a fetish photographer, and purveyor of some of the worst and most dull foot fetish films ever committed to tape. As his models slowly start dying, one by one, we are left in absolutely no doubt at all that it is the Tickle Monster that is doing the murdering and that (in true Twin Peaks style), the spirit of the Tickle Monster has claimed Tagg for his own diabolical ends.
The third strand covers various other narrative attempts at characterisation and setting, including a dreadful love triangle between Greer and her partner and her boyfriend, which is neither here nor there.
Every now and then, we are treated to some wonderful shots of Tagg writhing around in bed having Tickle Monster nightmares about tickled feet and dying models. They are so badly shot, and McGovern so incapable of expression that one almost welcomes the next scene…Which obviously, would be a mistake.
The way the film plays itself is very odd in that every twist is broadcast well in advance and we are left in no doubt as to how everything will play itself out and who does what to whom and when. There is a small part of me that would like to think that this film is not the haphazard mess it appears to be, that rather it is in fact a film of fetish material aimed at a very small audience of tickle/foot fetish who are in need of a narrative and action and all the things that make a feature film work, only in so far as they attach the fetish shots and Tagg’s dream sequences and one or two of the murder scenes. Nothing else is needed. Anybody else, however, will struggle to make it through, and this makes me wonder why there is so much extraneous material, with entire plot strands which could be cut leaving the 40 minutes minutes shorter, 40 minutes more fun. At least then it might just be the drunk-college-rip-it-as-it-happens film that might see a few students through a Friday night.
In the end though, there is so much wrong that it works neither as a horror/thriller (it is neither horrific nor thrilling) nor as a fetish film (there is not much fetish, and were one to fast-forward through the boring murder/police bits to the fetish/tickling scenes, one would be very disappointed indeed, unless one had very low standards as a fetishist).
As much as I would like to recommend Fetish Dolls Die Laughing, for the reasons I mentioned above, I just can’t. I mean, it is even possible to hear camera-noise over an establishing shot. Nobody seemed to notice or bother.
One last closing thought: it is remarkable, and sent me on a wonderful late night telly nostalgia trip, comparing FDDL to an episode of that great American television series ‘Silk Stalkings’, and the similarities are startling, and no, it is not as good. And Mitzi Kapture is not in it.
So, all in all, 1 fetish-ball out 5, and that just for turning up really.
Director: David Silvio
Writer: Michael McGovern
Starring: Antietam, Tiffany Apan, Angie Azur
Running Time: 100 min
Film Rating: 
