ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — “Dolly,” a new horror film evoking slashers like “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and filmed in Chattanooga, Tennessee, does Appalachian horror with gory panache. Sure, it’s derivative and unoriginal, but it makes for a lean, mean time at the movies.

“DOLLY” (2025, 83 min., directed by Rod Blackhurst)

“Dolly” is made by slasher fans, for slasher fans, and no one else is invited to the party. Anyone approaching the film for, say, dramatic heft or a coherent plot should be playing at a different dollhouse. Rod Blackhurst’s Appalachian slasher is nasty, campy lunacy, and not much else.

The premise is thus: Fabianne Therese and Russ Tiller star as Macy and Billy, a young couple on the brink of engagement. Macy is pretending not to know, but Billy is preparing to propose. For the big moment, Billy decides to take Macy on a hike to a mountain outlook, which he claims is one of his favorite spots in the world.

Do you like hiking as much as Billy and Macy? Check out Hikes of WNC, my weekly hiking column.

Despite Billy’s supposed familiarity with the trail, the couple somehow stumble across an array of dirty baby dolls hanging from a grove of trees. Mildly perturbed, the duo continue their hike, assuming the display is some kind of art project. What they don’t know is that the artist is the titular Dolly, a deranged killer who wears a mask resembling a porcelain doll. Death, mayhem and carnage ensue.

It’s a threadbare premise. The proceedings, which unfold over a brisk 83 minutes, eventually involve an unconvincing segment at a scary house – the production design resembles any number of generic haunted house attractions – and a return to the doll-strewn art exhibit, which is revealed to include a shallow grave as its pièce de résistance, but there is little revealed in the way of a story. Fortunately for its core audience, “Dolly” makes up for that deficit with some of grisliest gore I have borne witness to this side of “Terrifier.”

(Courtesy: Independent Film Company/Shudder)

That’s the thing. When “Dolly” leaned into its horror movie tropes, especially its inherent silliness, I thought it was borderline brilliant. The practical effects looked nauseatingly realistic, and the performances – Tiller, in particular – felt self-aware in an appreciative way. The film was clearly crafted by people who knew exactly what kind of movie they were making with no pretensions to the contrary. I mean, a side character is even named Tobe, presumably for Tobe Hooper, director of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” The film was at its best when it was wearing its references on its blood-splattered sleeve.

A notable exception to that rule would be Max the Impaler, the appropriately-named professional wrestler who portrays Dolly. Their performance felt over-wrought, with the actor twitchily overacting every bit of their character’s silent pantomime. The segments where Dolly rocks back and forth on the floor with insanity, for instance, or dithers over the “mothering” they attempt to deploy on Macy, were hard to watch for how self-conscious they felt. The rest of the movie may have been an obvious homage to “Texas Chainsaw,” but it was hard to shake off the feeling that Max’s performance was a cheap Leatherface imitation.

I think that “Dolly” could have made for a terrific short. Chop off the fluff, snap off a few of the extremities and that brief hour and 20 minutes could have been a fantastic and revolting 20 minutes outright. Even so, I’m happy to have another entrant in the Appalachian horror movie canon. If you like this sort of stuff, you will be, too.

Rating: 2.5/5