Macabre…ish Horror Review: Robert The Doll

 

 

Robert The Doll aka Robert, 2015/ 1 hr 30 min.

 

A couple, Jenny and Paul Otto are forced to lay off their nanny, Agatha, who they think has gotten too old to do her job. She does not take it well and leaves a doll behind, named Robert, for their son, Gene. She tells him Robert is special and will protect him. And if Gene treats him well, Robert will look after him. Afterward, Agatha leaves Jenny with a veiled threat as she leaves.

 

Jenny discovers Robert in Gene’s room and is confused and kind of freaked out by him. And Gene says Robert told him that she was mean to Agatha. And Gene’s dad, Paul is not thrilled by the idea of his son having a doll, at all.

 

It’s not long before the parents start hearing footsteps running around the house, catching movement running past and it’s not Gene, who is often found asleep in his bed. And the foot prints are tiny. The next day Gene insists it was Robert but of course his mother doesn’t believe him.

 

One evening, Jenny, who is an artist was working on a painting and when she left the room, her painting was vandalized and the culprit left red foot prints as they walked away. She goes upstairs to confront Gene, who was asleep, he insists it wasn’t him and it was, in fact, Robert. Who is sitting in the nearby chair with red paint on the bottom of his shoes.

 

Later on, Jenny, hears talking coming out of Gene’s room and it is clearly two people talking and when she enters the room, Gene tells her that he and Robert were talking.

 

After the housekeeper, Martha, is startled by Robert standing in a mirror, she grabs him and puts him in Gene’s room and closes the door. But as she walks away, she hear’s the door open and Robert pushes her over the stair rail, causing her to fall on the landing below. Martha is badly hurt but alive, she tells Jenny it was the doll when she found her bleeding on the floor.

 

As the danger escalates, Jenny asks Gene if she can put Robert in the attic. Gene is clear, Robert won’t like it and he will be mad if she does that. And Jenny thinks Paul is starting to think these new issues may be an issue of her mental health, of which she has struggled with in the past. But she insists weird things have been happening since Agatha left the doll.

 

One night when the Ottos’ return after a night out, they find the front door wide open and the sitter, Marcy, gone. The phone has also been unplugged. Jenny finds out that Marcy has been killed and the police want to interview them.

 

Finally, Jenny considers maybe Gene’s been telling the truth and she asks him about Robert and what he says to him. Robert says he doesn’t like Jenny and Paul, he pushed Martha down the stairs, and that Marcy made him mad. Jenny leaves the room with Robert and demands he speak. Paul walks in her and he’s worried. Worried about his wife’s mental health.

 

Jenny decides to put Robert in the shed and she’ll be going to Agatha’s house to ask about the doll. Upon arriving at her last address, she finds out from her neighbor, that she’s died.  And while Jenny’s gone, Paul contacts her doctor. But he will find out first hand that she’s not crazy.

 

There are five movies in this franchise, other than Robert the Doll, The Curse of Robert, Robert and the Toymaker, The Revenge of Robert the Doll and Robert Reborn. This is an English movie and I swear the doll looks like who ever made it started off with Cillian Murphy as an inspiration and ended up at Willem Dafoe, Robert looks scary. This movie isn’t as scary or has as many good doll scenes as say, Chucky but it is eerie.

 

 

All were directed by Andrew Jones who passed away January 15, 2023.