FilmSci-Fi Horror Classic Monsters Gothic

The Devil-Doll1936

Name: The Devil-Doll
Genre: Sci-Fi Horror, Classic Monsters, Gothic
Released: 1936-07-10
Rating: 7.1

“Greater Than "The Unholy Three"”

Directed by Tod Browning

7.1

Crypt Score

Blended from 3 sources

IMDb 7.0Rotten Tomatoes 79%TMDB 6.8

✍ Review

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Year

1936

Runtime

78 min

Box Office

🏆 1 win & 1 nomination total

The premise

Respected Parisian banker Paul Lavond is framed for robbery and murder by crooked associates and sent to prison. Years later, he escapes with a friend, a scientist who was working on a method to reduce humans to a height of mere inches (all for the good of humanity, of course). Lavond, however, is consumed with hatred for those who betrayed him, and takes the scientist's methods back to Paris to exact painful revenge.

Horror Vault's take

A wrongfully condemned man escapes a brutal prison sentence carrying with him a dangerous scientific secret — the ability to shrink living people down to doll-like proportions. Back in Paris, he pursues the corrupt associates who destroyed his life, wielding his tiny, eerily obedient agents as instruments of retribution. Director Tod Browning crafts a sinister tale that blurs the line between justice and monstrosity, cloaking its dark ambitions in the trappings of a revenge thriller. Lionel Barrymore delivers a memorably eccentric lead performance that gives the film an unsettling, carnival-sideshow energy.

Content: Depictions Of Mind Control, Scenes Of Menace Involving Shrunken Human Figures, Mild Violence