‘American Dollhouse’ Unwraps Gruesome Christmas Carnage [Review]
What is carnage candy? Well, your core audience just expects it. Or not. John Valley’s American Dollhouse unwraps so much Christmas carnage candy, you’d think Santa ignored every other kid in the world, but you’ll have to wait until the Big Day to open it. American Dollhouse postures as the kind of low-stakes indie horror we see often on the festival scene, until suddenly (and gloriously, gratuitously), it isn’t.
Hailley Lauren’s Sarah ignores the warnings of every pop punk album ever made and returns to her childhood home. Her mother, recently deceased, left her and her brother, Michael (Tinus Seaux), the property. Michael reasons it’s best to just sell it off and pocket some quick holiday cash, though Sarah, on account of some nebulous trauma, desperately needs a place far from the city to rest and recover. So, she’s going to keep it, at least for a little while, and grapple with what it really means to go back home.
Only, that’s not really her biggest concern. Far from it. Sure, Sarah gets an unbroken, teary monologue midway through, adding context to her regular substance abuse and borderline hostile personality, but her biggest problem is purely external: Sandy. Kelsey Pribilski’s neighbor is a chronic source of pain. Irritating at first as she peeps through Sarah’s windows and skulks around her lawn. Homicidal when she starts conceptualizing Sarah as her own deceased mother.
It’s a domestic thriller, Lakeview Terrace or Arlington Road (or The Neighbor, Rear Window, Disturbia, you name it), until it isn’t. You’re primed for some commentary on the dissolution of community, how Sandy’s efforts to make nice push her to violent ends. And then American Dollhouse culls from Inside and Terrifier 3 for a nasty, repulsive, exploitative romp into the kind of “torture porn” that would have 2005 grinning from ear to ear.
It’s beautiful. Not only does Valley’s script subvert expectations, but he also wisely eschews whatever modicum of broader, societal implications were present earlier in favor of making the nastiest movie possible. American Dollhouse gets gross, and while never as extreme as the aforementioned holiday classics, it pulls off that miraculous Better Watch Out feat of pretending to be something it’s not before a swift rug-pull that upends all expectations.
I wouldn’t dare spoil Sandy’s intentions, but Valley and his team manage a gnarly, grotesque holiday tableau. Even the family dog is involved. To its detriment, American Dollhouse perhaps takes a touch too long to get there. Sandy is a formidable villain, though her repeated tit-for-tat with Sarah never yields quite the same macabre thrill as the finale. And both performers, while regularly game, struggle with the material that endeavors to do anything other than shock.
If you were a fan of Inside’s woman vs. woman Christmas horror, American Dollhouse is a delicious second course. It’s not quite as vicious, provocative, or enduring, but it’s much better than the lumps of coal we’re all too used to when it comes to Christmas horror. John Valley sure knows how to deck the halls.
American Dollhouse screens at the Overlook Film Festival on April 10.
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American Dollhouse
Summary
John Valley’s American Dollhouse is gruesome Christmas carnage candy well worth unwrapping. A true slasher gift.
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