[Fantastic Fest 2025 Review]: Dolly

Dolly played by Max The Impaler

Having had its world premiere at this year's Fantastic Fest, Dolly, directed by Rod Blackhurst is an unrelenting and violent homage to 1970s hicks-ploitation, as well as incorporating strong vibes of New French Extremity. Centering on a woman Macy (Fabianne Therese) who has been kidnapped by a masked killer, she must find a way to escape before she is forced to succumb to a twisted and bizarre fate.

When Macy and her boyfriend Chase (played by Seann William Scott) journey through the woods on a hike, after which Chase plans to propose, never did they expect to run into the sadistic and homicidal Dolly (played by professional wrestler Max The Impaler), a grown woman who dresses like a little girl’s play thing and insists on wearing an incredibly creepy cracked doll mask. Dolly has one wish, and that is to keep Macy as her own baby, “raising” her as if Macy was her own child inside a house that hides many disturbing secrets within its walls. 

Fabianne Therese as Macy

From the opening scenes, Dolly explicitly lays out its intentions to be an homage to 1970s exploitation cinema, with a strong sense of the era’s aesthetic and cinematography styles, as well as the period’s collective commentary on how the horrors are in America’s back garden, hidden behind the walls and doors of seemingly normal houses. As the scenery transfers from lush forest to dilapidated house, audiences are treated to what seems like a full sensory assault, as if the smell and griminess of Macy’s new prison (perhaps her first “prison” being that of her hesitation towards marriage) can be experienced through the screen. 

The practical effects and gore sequences in Dolly are perhaps the highlight of the film. With her unrelenting need for violence in order to meet her needs, the character Dolly also evokes a sense of sympathy despite her villainy, with her being a product of her upbringing, not that much unlike another masked killer brought up in a family of monsters. 

However it is perhaps this association and likeness to Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) which is unfortunately Dolly’s biggest downfall. Whilst it is totally commendable for a film to wear its influences on its sleeve or its raison d’etre to be an homage to the horrors of the 1970s, at times Dolly feels a little too similar to the exploitation classic, even sharing the same closing sequence with both bloodied final girls laughing maniacally. Despite Dolly failing to forge its own path in back-yard Americana horror, the promise of a sequel is intriguing…what will Dolly do next?

3 Screams out of 5