There’s something inherently disturbing about ventriloquist dummies. Maybe it’s the dead eyes. Maybe it’s the jaw that clicks just a little too late. Or maybe it’s the deep, nagging suspicion that this lifeless puppet would make a better dinner guest than your in-laws. Devil Doll (1964), a British horror flick steeped in stiff upper lips and low-rent menace, takes that uncanny valley and drives a hearse straight through it. The result? A mildly entertaining, semi-creepy, often ridiculous little movie that doesn’t quite kill the crowd but certainly bruises it.
At best, Devil Doll is a lukewarm séance with a few good jumps. At worst, it’s a cautionary tale about putting too much faith in Hugo, the world’s sulkiest dummy, and not enough in basic script structure. Directed by Lindsay Shonteff (who would go on to not be Alfred Hitchcock), it features a psychotic hypnotist, a talking puppet, and a subplot that dares to ask, “What if being a stage magician was actually the most dangerous profession in London?”
Let’s open the sarcophagus, shall we?
The Plot: If You Can Call It That Without Laughing
Meet “The Great Vorelli,” played with smarmy aplomb by Bryant Haliday, a hypnotist-magician-ventriloquist-triple-threat who seems like he’s constantly two drinks and one possession away from a complete breakdown. His dummy Hugo is more than just a prop—he walks, he talks, and he has more existential angst than a French philosophy student chain-smoking through a Nietzsche seminar.
Enter Mark English (William Sylvester), an American reporter with a name so on-the-nose you’d think it was invented by a screenwriter late for lunch. Mark’s girlfriend is Marianne (Yvonne Romain), a wealthy heiress with the narrative purpose of being hypnotized, sexually assaulted, and ultimately targeted for spiritual displacement into doll form. She’s also the only character who displays a shred of common sense, and for that, she is promptly punished by the plot.
Mark, in a brilliant move of journalistic rigor, decides to investigate Vorelli by pushing Marianne into his stage act. This leads to the usual hypnotic dance scene (yes, the twist, because it’s 1964 and moral terror is measured in hip gyrations), followed by the astonishing reveal: Hugo the dummy stands up and walks offstage.
Is it a trick? Magic? The slow collapse of the British Empire? Whatever it is, Mark smells a story. Unfortunately, what he gets is a strange blend of Gothic horror, pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo, and enough misogyny to fill a Victorian fainting couch.
Vorelli: Evil Magician or Unlicensed Therapist?
Bryant Haliday’s Vorelli is the kind of guy who says “trust me” and then immediately hypnotizes you into jumping off a cliff. He’s got the smug charisma of a man who truly believes that spiritual domination and ventriloquism go together like tea and crumpets. We learn early on that Vorelli once studied medicine—because of course he did—and that he spent some time dabbling in “Eastern magic,” which, in 1964 horror terms, means “learned exactly enough about mysticism to be deeply irresponsible with it.”
He keeps Hugo locked in a cage like a gothic parrot, commands an increasingly zombified Marianne like she’s an Alexa with cleavage, and generally treats consent like an optional tip. His plan, which unfolds with all the subtlety of a meat cleaver in a crystal shop, is to hypnotize Marianne, marry her, and then transfer her soul into a doll. Somewhere, Freud is screaming from beyond the grave.
Hugo: The Soul-Trapped Dummy Who Just Wants to Die Already
Poor Hugo. Once a man, now a dummy, and still stuck working nights in a third-rate ventriloquism act. He’s the film’s secret weapon—or would be, if the movie weren’t so determined to keep him in the background like a half-forgotten side dish at a cursed banquet. The real tragedy is that Hugo’s story—trapped in wood, tormented by Vorelli, longing for freedom—is far more compelling than anything Mark English is doing with his fedora and his typewriter.
When Hugo finally gets his moment, it’s in the kind of body-swapping showdown that would make Freaky Friday look like a Bergman film. Souls leap, dummies revolt, and Hugo ends up possessing Vorelli’s body. It’s the kind of ending that begs for a sequel where Hugo tries to navigate modern life as a sleazy stage magician but just ends up starting a wellness podcast.
Production Value: Do It Yourself, Or Else
Devil Doll was made for a reported £20,000, which might explain why the lighting is moody in the way that accidentally unplugging your lamp is moody. The sets swing between charmingly claustrophobic and “we’re filming in someone’s basement but we lit a candle so it’s okay.” The score, meanwhile, is either foreboding or hilarious depending on how much whiskey you’ve had.
Director Lindsay Shonteff deserves some credit for wringing actual tension from such limited resources. The film never quite tips into camp, even when it seems to beg for it. But it also never leans hard enough into horror. Instead, it rests somewhere in the limbo between Dead of Night and Twilight Zone filler episode—just creepy enough to keep you watching, never clever enough to blow your mind.
Sex, Hypnosis, and Ventriloquism: A Love Triangle No One Asked For
What gives Devil Doll its curious energy is its sleazy undercurrent. The hypnosis scenes have an unsettling, predatory vibe that make you want to shower afterward. Vorelli doesn’t just control people—he breaks them, one mental command at a time. Marianne’s victimization is disturbing, not just because of the violation itself, but because the film never quite condemns it. It uses her assault as a plot device, then dusts its hands off and moves on.
Even Magda, Vorelli’s long-suffering assistant/lover/murder victim, gets a raw deal. Her reward for sticking around a sociopath is to be stabbed by a dummy in a moment that would be comedic if it weren’t so bleak. Honestly, it’s hard not to root for Hugo—he’s got more humanity in his glassy wooden eyes than most of the cast.
Final Thoughts: The Puppet Show That Ate Your Soul
Devil Doll is a middle-of-the-road horror flick that wants to say something deep about identity, power, and the human soul, but mostly says, “Wouldn’t it be creepy if a puppet could kill you?” And to its credit—it kind of is.
The acting is passable, the story is silly but serviceable, and the moments of true horror (Hugo pleading for help in a darkened bedroom, Vorelli’s final possession) carry enough weight to keep the whole affair from collapsing into total nonsense.
It won’t change your life. It probably won’t even change your weekend. But if you’re in the mood for a forgotten relic from Britain’s dusty horror attic—one filled with moral ambiguity, unintentional laughs, and a puppet who just wants out—Devil Doll is worth your time.
Just don’t stare too long into Hugo’s eyes. He might be looking back.
Rating: 2.5 out of 4 Possessed Puppets
Because some horror movies wrap their claws around your soul—this one just wants to hypnotize you into clapping politely.
