Writer/director John Valley delivers an early Christmas present with his new film, American Dollhouse. Screening at this year’s Overlook Film Festival, it plays like an early ’80s slasher (it’d fit nicely next to the likes of Alone in the Dark and Death Screams) but operates with a modern-leaning psychological lens. It feels familiar without being tired and forgettable. With several star-making performances, American Dollhouse serves as a stunning reminder that evil in today’s world is not monsters or ghouls creeping out of the woods, but rather the corruption and cruelty emerging from our neighbors. It’s insidious and will surely smother you in your sleep.
Sarah (Hailley Lauren) returns to her childhood home with great trepidation. The visit yanks long-buried trauma into the glaring sun. She has held off confronting the past for decades, but there’s no avoiding it this time. Her brother (Tinus Seaux) harbors his own demons and cautiously greets his sister with a half-smile. He hasn’t learned to forgive and forget either, and he’s about to step into something he never could have anticipated. Sarah’s neighbor, Sandy (Kelsey Pribilski), lacks boundaries and understanding of social cues. But she means well. She even gives Sarah a baggie of fresh-baked cookies to welcome her to town! Caught up in her own mental health issues, Sarah doesn’t discern that Sandy is simply reaching out.
Sarah’s abrasive behavior, which includes dumping the cookies into the outside garbage can, opens a can of worms. Sandy doesn’t take too kindly to disrespect and ungratitude. Her obsessive, child-like infatuation with Sarah swiftly escalates when a delivery guy (Richard C. Jones) stops by for pizza and conversation. All Sandy sees is red when it comes to those in Sarah’s life, frequently resulting in bloody consequences. Sandy just wanted a friend, and it’s far too late to turn back now.
American Dollhouse surprises with Pribilski’s performance that follows a long lineage of terrifying women in horror, from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? to The People Under the Stairs and Misery. Pribilski explores modern themes of loneliness, companionship, desperation, and human kindness through a raw, visceral lens that only a slasher structure could allow. When you drill down to it, Sandy isn’t necessarily a terrible person. She’s simply the product of a society that relishes viciousness for the sake of it, with a disregard for humanity.
As we’ve seen with MAGA for a decade, real horror stems from a fear of the unknown and the belief that it’s better to stick with what makes you comfortable rather than learn anything new. American Dollhouse takes a machete and eviscerates toxic socio-political ideology with reckless abandon. Valley brutally, yet thoughtfully, engages with contemporary life, and the reality that evil really does lurk around every corner, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
American Dollhouse screens at the Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans this weekend.
