Review: Finders Keepers

Jaime Pressly and her 9 year-old daughter (Kylie Rogers) move into a new home, after a recent separation from her husband (Patrick Muldoon). Rogers finds a tattered old doll and is soon infatuated with it. Turns out the doll has a dark past involving a murder-happy young boy, and now the doll seems to be having a dark influence on young Rogers. Tobin Bell turns up as a concerned child psychologist and Justina Marchado plays Pressly’s ‘ethnic mumbo-jumbo expert’ best friend (It’s an accurate description, believe me).

 

Forget that this 2014 horror film was made for TV, it’s not overly violent but there’s little difference here in horrific content from the average horror film from the 90s or early 00s, for instance. The real problem with this film from director Alexander Yellen and screenwriter Peter Sullivan is that the plot is exactly like the kind of thing you would have found in a horror film from the 90s or early 00s, and not one of the good ones. It’s tired, clichéd, and a few recognisable names and faces in the cast can’t remotely save it. In fact, the casting of Jamie Pressly as a mother is really ironic given how long it’s been since she was semi-relevant. Yes, you really are that old and the 90s really did end a long, long time ago. Seeing former “Star Trek” hottie Marina Sirtis play a ‘cat lady’ damn near had me reaching for a bottle, if not for the fact that I don’t drink alcohol.

 

Aside from the hilarious casting of former “Studs” host Mark Di Carlo as a sleazy real estate agent (!), the best thing about the entire film is that the DVD cover is pretty cool-looking. Otherwise, it’s just another “Hide and Seek” or “The Godsend”, and Pressly’s pixie-cut certainly didn’t fool me into thinking I was watching “Rosemary’s Baby”. The impact of divorce on kids is an interesting subject that could even work in a horror film. However, it’s not nearly enough to stop an otherwise sucky horror film from sucking. I did like one moment, however. Patrick Muldoon’s girlfriend (played by Trilby Glover, I believe) gives his daughter a doll to play with to replace the apparently freaky-looking doll she’s been playing with. The hilarity? The new doll is even scarier. Seriously, the doll has teeth like mine. No child should ever be given a doll with my godawful overbite, trust me on that. Ugly as sin (Although my teeth aren’t nearly as white, granted). The main doll used, by the way, is completely ridiculous. It looks too made-up creepy to convince as a doll that might’ve at one point been genuinely acceptable to give to a child. Then again, like I said, that other doll is hideous too.

 

Pressly’s OK in the lead, and Patrick Muldoon’s lack of success as an actor continues to confound me. He’s no great thesp, but he’s good-looking and charismatic enough that he should be more than just the Rob Lowe of daytime TV and crappy TV movies. I don’t get it, though there’s not much he can do in this one. I’m not sure why Tobin Bell (who looked more alive in some of the “Saw” films he was supposed to be dead in) has been cast in such a vanilla, non-villainous role (and a really small one to boot), but some might find perverse amusement in seeing Counsellor Troi from “Star Trek: TNG” acting and looking like Margot Kidder circa the 90s, if you know what I mean. Truly terrible performance from someone who should’ve known better.

 

The cinematography is nice and bright, which is a nice change for a horror film. But yeah, that’s about it for niceties for this one. If you do watch, take a look at the scene where the girl is apparently picking the wings off flies. Yeah, the wings are still there, they’re just dead flies. Hilarious, but nice try. Pretty useless, archaic horror stuff. Can we put an end to the whole ‘person on the ground rapidly dragged away to their death by an unseen force’ cliché? It’d be insulting to recommend this one to the undemanding. Some of the acting is OK, but so what? Watch “Child’s Play” again instead. That camp horror classic hasn’t dated one bit.

 

Rating: D+