Phoebe Torrance's performance in and of itself very nearly made me turn this movie off after all of 10 or 15 minutes. Ms. Torrance may be physically attractive, but she can't act at all. Her timing, her inflection, her expressions were all off. She may well be one of the worst actresses that I've ever seen.
Not that the rest of the cast was much better.
The basic story is that a young girl named Mandy froze to death as a result of a cruel prank prepetrated by local bullies. Upon dying, her soul enters a doll, which becomes the repository for her vengeful spirit.
The movie cuts to one of Mandy's (the doll, not the little girl) recent and former babysitters, and her boyfriend. The babysitter tells her boyfriend about babysitting a little girl that she never actually saw. She tells him of unsettling, creepy feelings that she got while on the job, and says that she's done. She's never going back. There comes a knock at the door, and when she goes to answer the door, she finds a box with a doll inside. She then tells her boyfriend the legend of Mandy the Haunted Doll. He laughs the story off. Long story short, the doll kills the former babysitters and her boyfriend.
We next go the the introduction of Phoebe Torrance's character, Jessie. Jessie is fresh out of prison, and is picked up by her sister and her sister's hoodlum boyfriend. They're all going to make a fresh start, sister tells Jessie, they just have to pull one last burglary. Jessie is to be hired as a babysitter, and when the opportunity arises, she is supposed to call her sister and the hoodlum so that they can ransack the place. Jessie refuses at first, but then relents and agrees to the caper.
Jessie goes to the target house to babysit, and is given explicit instructions by the homeowner, Mrs. O'Brien. After O'Brien leaves, Jessie draws and takes a hot bath, because that's apparently what one does when babysitting at someone that she never knew or met before's house. The director must have a foot fetish, because while we have a naked Phoebe Torrance in the tub, he fixates on her feet.
After her bath, Jessie explores the house and finds Mandy the doll. She thinks that Mrs. O'Brien's daughter was abducted, so she calls O'Brien to apologize and explain. Love and behold, Jessie is there to keep an eye on the doll, and not an actual little girl!
After this revelation, Jessie calls her sister and the sister's hoodlum boyfriend to burglarize the house. At this point, I should warn you that this movie piles stupid upon stupid, and tosses in a soupcon of idiocy for good measure. Jessie, her sister, and the hoodlum boyfriend are so annoying that I wanted the doll to kill them as quickly and as painfully as possible.
I have to reiterate that Phoebe Torrance's performance is so bad in this movie that I would not watch another movie with her in it. She's the Anti-Meryl Streep.
Back to the movie. Neal, the hoodlum boyfriend, runs afoul of Mandy the Haunted Doll in the attic. In the meantime, Neal's fence shows up at the house so that she can collect whatever cash and other valuables that Neal's crew could come up with. Jessie tries to convince her sister that Mandy the Haunted Doll is alive, but to no avail. Neal's fence wanders about the house looking for him while Jessie is trying to convince her sister that Mandy is alive.
Mandy kills Neal and his fence, and then pushes Jessie out of a second story window. Jessie is knocked unconscious, and when she wakes up, she's in a tea party with dead Neal, dead Neal's fence, her sister, and of course, Mandy. Mandy cuts Jessie's sister on the arm, and then Mrs. O'Brien returns home.
Jessie and her sister call to Mrs..O'Brien for help, but surprise! Mrs. O'Brien really doesn't want to help. Mandy then tells Mrs. O'Brien to look in Jessie's sister's bag, and the plot to burglarize the house is revealed. Mrs. O'Brien attacks Jessie with a claw hammer, and Jessie flees to another room in the house, where she finds more dolls. These dolls hold captive the souls of everyone who has wronged Mandy.
Jessie and Mrs. O'Brien struggle, and Jessie gets the upper hand. Jessie then goes back to the tea party to rescue her sister. Mrs..O'Brien, beaten and on the floor, beseeches Mandy to come to her aid. Jessie and her sister are trying to find a way out of the house, but her sister succumbs to her injuries and dies. Mrs. O'Brien attacks Jessie again, but Jessie clocks her across the face with the hammer and manages to get out of the house. She gets to Neal's car to drive away, but Mandy is in the back seat. We hear Jessie scream as the scene fades to black, and then the movie cuts to three months later, with new people, a mother and daughter, occupying Mrs. O'Brien's house. Oh no! Mom finds Mandy the Haunted Doll. Mom tosses Mandy into the trash, but Haunted Mandy is not so easily disposed of. That night, the daughter wakes up and hears Mandy giggling softly. Of course, she goes to investigate, and finds her mother sitting in the hallway, cradling Mandy in her lap. Then mother looks at daughter with crazy eyes, cackles maniacally, and proclaims, "It looks like she's found a new home now!". The daughter screams, and the movie ends.
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