Spanish horror makes an argument against boys playing with dolls with THE KILLER OF DOLLS, on Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro.

When his fear of blood derails his ambitions to be a surgeon, twenty-year-old Paul (David Rocha, EL CAMINANTE) returns home to the estate where his father (Gaspar 'Indio' González, THE WEREWOLF AND THE YETI) works as gardener for the vast park of the Countess Olivia (Helga Liné, HORROR EXPRESS). After his mother (Elisenda Ribas, SCHOOL OF DEATH) humiliates him in front of the Countess by exposing his phobia, Paul snaps and dons a mask and wig, stalking a courting couple in the park and murdering the girl. When his parents go on vacation, Paul is left in charge of the gardens and the Countess invites him into the villa in order to seduce him; however, he continues killing women who venture into the park with romantic partners at night, collecting their hearts and dumping the bodies; that is, until the Countess' daughter Audrey (Inma de Santis, FORBIDDEN LOVE GAME) comes home and wins his heart. The more Paul resists the urge to kill, the more the line between reality and fantasy start to blur to tragic proportions.

Described by director Miguel Madrid in a Hitchcockian onscreen introduction as the "self-analysis of a psychopath," THE KILLER OF DOLLS has more to do with the likes of Mario Bava's Spanish co-production HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON (with a side of SLEEPAWAY CAMP) or Claudio Guerin Hill's BELL FROM HELL than either the Italian giallo or the more rustic Spanish horrors of Paul Naschy and Amando de Ossorio. Rocha's lead performance is hysterically-pitched from the start, but his character exists in a world where his behavior believably does not raise suspicion: his father thinks he's hopeless, his mother thinks he lives to torment her, the Countess did not even realize that the gardener had a son in the twenty-odd years they had been working there (although she did believe they had a daughter…) and she cannot see past his looks while her daughter believes his intensity is part of his passionate nature. The budget was obviously low but Madrid makes the most of cluttering his already picturesque mise-en-scene (the park was designed by Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill) with dolls, mannequins, and pinned butterflies and surreal touches that are sometimes forced and clumsy but enough to throw Paul's and the audience's expectations off-kilter, particularly in the character of a terror of a young boy in whom Paul perhaps sees something of himself (the boy is introduced battering, disarticulating, and burning a talking baby doll). While not quite on the tier of the genre work of Narciso Ibáñez Serrador (THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED) or Eloy de la Iglesia (THE GLASS CEILING), it is better than the likes of the films of José María Elorrieta (FEAST OF SATAN) and, on the whole, perhaps more indicative of the abilities and ambitions of Madrid than his more widely-released GRAVEYARD OF HORROR.

Unreleased outside of Spain, THE KILLER OF DOLLS was better known than seen with a few citations in genre reference works like Phil Hardy's AURUM OVERLOOK ENCYLCOPEDIA OF THE HORROR MOVIES. A terrible-quality subtitled bootleg surfaced in the nineties from Video Search of Miami followed by a more recent Spanish DVD from Filmax which subsequently made the rounds as a fan-subtitled boot. Mastered from a 4K scan of the original camera negative, the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray opens with a note that a short effects sequence had to be taken from a video source but it is not particularly distracting given the overall visual texture of the film in terms of the original shooting. There are soft shots that are more indicative of a rushed shoot and one angle of a lengthy scene where a light leak is evident on the right side of the frame which the production obviously thought was good enough. The transfer otherwise boasts vibrant color in the wardrobe, décor, and lighting. The Spanish DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono track is clean with only the minor presence of his expected of the recording techniques of the period. Optional English subtitles are provided.

Mondo Macabro already have a great track record with Spanish horror on Blu-ray with two Naschys (INQUISITION and THE DEVIL'S INCARNATE), Vicente Aranda's THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE and Serrador's WHO CAN KILL A CHILD, and the Blu-ray debut of THE KILLING OF DOLLS is another nicely-curated edition starting with a pair of audio commentary tracks. On the first, Diabolique Magazine editor Kat Ellinger provides what little background there is on director Madrid in the Spanish press, notes that Rocha and de Santis were promoted as a couple in publicity surrounding the film (one wonders if the pair's trip to the city in the film with their visit to the mannequin factory and beach romp was conceived for publicity purposes), and compares the film and its artistic touches to GRAVEYARD OF HORROR (for which she finally provides a reason for the film's puzzling cinematography prize at the Sitges film festival). She also discusses the story, the film's hard to classify genre in the context of Spanish horror and the Italian giallo, and the latter genre's trope of dolls and mannequins (which would make the film an interesting companion piece to the more disturbing TOYS ARE NOT FOR CHILDREN for which she provided a commentary track on the recent Arrow Video release). On the second with film historians Robert Monell (of the Jess Franco blog El Franconomicon) and Rod Barnett (of the Naschycast podcast), Monell starts by describing the film as less of a psychological thriller than a psychoanalytical one, and the track itself does concentrate throughout on the pathology of the character, the storyline, and a debate about whether Madrid's deployment of the surreal and the unreal is successful.