Horror knockoffs are a dime a dozen these days with seeming every single characters that's in the public domain getting one. Well we have a horror movie that's based on both a popular toy character that is still under copyright law and its successful 2023 film and if you want to know what character and movie this is knocking off just look at the films title as it's clear as day what character is being knocked off in this movie and to then join me as I review the film that likes to remind you of other better horror properties like The Munsters and Creature From The Black Lagoon with the film in question being called simply just "Darbie's Screamhouse" enjoy.
The plot of this film is when Darbie gets told that her boyfriend is cheating on her she sets out to kill all of the people that he's cheating on her with. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that'd actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really bad. Even for a film that's obviously using a beloved character as the main villain this films plot is bad like laughably bad as there is nothing to this films plot at all with it feeling like that the makers of this film wrote this film up over a weekend and called it a day as there is no thought and no effort put into this films plot. To say that this films plot is thin would be an understatement as while the film does indeed get to the plot right away it does take a good long while for the plot to really get going and when it does and when it does get to things that are interesting or decently done it gets cut off all for no reason with this being something that does leave the plot of the films feeling underbaked with one of the ideas of the film being something that is so stupid that it does actually work that being the fact that the doll characters in this film are literally dolls in the real world with them all even having an owner but the film does nothing with that idea and yet it's the best part of the films plot, this films plot can best be described as nothing alot happens for an hour followed by everything happening in the final thirteen minuets of the film as that what it felt like alot of the time as the film doesn't devote any time to fully fleshing out it's plot with the plot of this film also not really being really rather entertaining and as well as not really being really rather engaging either in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this film is this films co-writer -co-composer and executive producer Jessa Jupiter Flux as Darbie , Ashleigh Amberlynn as Ditzie Darbie , Brent W. Black as Brent and Angel Nichole Bradford as Danger Darbie. Also starring in this film is Joe Casterline as Beach Blanket Ben , Kimberly Lynn Cole as The Mayor , Mel Heflin as Rodeo Darbie , Jimmy Kelley as Jimbo , Fallon Maressa as Dream Date , Kasper Meltedhair as Deidre Doll , Claude D. Miles as Ben , Newt Wallen as Sleazy Steve and Ana Xaden as Tripper.
Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that'd actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really bad. Even for one of these extremely cheaply made horror films where the actors are usually just friends with the director the acting is bad even the child actor that they got to play the dolls owner is bad this is of course none of the actors fault as they are being told to act a certain but when your leading actor has so many other roles in the films production then she really should have stepped up her game and made sure that the director and co-writer Donald Farmer knew what he was doing as it does seem like he had no idea on how to get a good performance out of his actors and it is something that really does show in this film. With the best actor in the film being Mel Heflin as Rodeo Darbie as she looks like she's the only one who is having a good time in making this film and is fully committed to it does this make her performance in the film good no but it does make her better then alot of the films other actors with her character her character a southern charm that does make her character more fun with this being being something that does come through in her performance. With the acting that's in this film not really being helped by the fact that this films script is just so bad as it gives none of this films actors absolutely nothing to work with interms of what it is that there actual characters personalities are even meant to be in the first place which is something that really does harm the overall quality of the acting that's in this very film.
Character wise it does go without saying as alike alot of these horror movies the films characters are at best weak. As none of this films characters ate even remotely well written with all of them just being bland and boring characters that feel like characters in a decently written Barbie horror fanfiction look to be fair this films characters were never ever going to be that good as this films script was more then likely written in a week with there being no re-writes to the films script yet if there was re-writes to the script then the makes of the film could have taken the chance to make the films characters at the very least passable as Darbie is just a dumb character who is literally just Barbie but with no charm to her and the rest of her line of dolls all have the personality of there name Ditzy Darbie is dumb , Rodeo Darbie loves country , Danger Darbie loves sports which isn't dangerous at all and Tripper is nosey these are the more stereotypical character traits that they could give a character with all of the male characters having zero personality which given that there ripping of Ken is oddly fitting. Heck they even fail to understand that being into sports isn't a dangerous thing therefor calling a character Danger Darbie makes to sense when you could have called her Sporty Darbie and having two characters in the film serving as the films dumb character just doesn't work and is just pure lazy writing on the behalf of the makers of this film with it being obvious that the makers of this film are just coping the character traits of the characters in the 2023 live action Barbie movie without taking the time to realize what it was that made those character traits in that film work as well as did because if they did then this films characters would have been better written.
It's pretty obvious just by looking at the title of the film that this film is ripping off the live action Barbie movie and the Barbie toyline in general. As everything about this film was done so much more better in that movie with even the fact that this film mainly takes lace in the world of the Darbie dolls here called Dollworld and occasionally cutting back to the real world whereas in the Barbie movie that movie was set both in Barbie Land and the real world world and even the title of the film is a play on Barbie's Dreamhouse this film is such a Barbie knock off that Mattel could actually have grounds to sue as while they are not using there characters it's clear as day who the knocks are meant to represent as the film makes no attempts to hide it. Just to be clear I was willing to go into this film with an open mind and fully accept it as a movie done in the vains of say The Mouse Trap or Popeye's Revenge but those movies at least had some level of thought put into what it was that they were knocking off and while yes the whole idea behind these films is always the fact that the killer is a beloved kids character however this film is such an obvious knock off of a much more better movie that it is hard to ignore alot alot of the time where as in alot of these other films you can easily just switch your brain of and accept it for what it is here tho you really can't do that as they do throw so much stuff at you that was done better in the Barbie movie that all it ends up doing is reminding you that you could have been watching that movie instead, this is something that wouldn't be an issue if the film had alot more redeeming qualities about it but it doesn't as there is clearly no thought and no effort put into this film and that is something that you do notice right away and becomes a bigger issue the longer that the film goes on heck if I made this film i'd be embarrassed by it as it is just that bad and that obvious of a Barbie knock off film.
There really is nothing all that redeeming about this film with the film even having dreadful sound al throughout the film. With characters from sounding there like there whispering even tho there in the same room as each other to suddenly SOUNDING LIKE THERE SOUTING in the same scene this is something that really does hit home the fact that this film was really poorly made as even The Mouse Trap had better sound quality then this film does and that film was made for cheaply in a couple of weeks where as with this film it does feel like everything came together in a matter of days with the films sound quality really suffering as a result of how cheaply made that this film was whereas if the makers of this film did take the time to fully make the film as best they could have done by raising the funds to get better equipment then we could have something that was at the very least watchable but we don't even have that. Look to be fair to this film this film it was made cheaply and this is something that does need to be taken into account but you can still get good quality sound cheaply just by going to a film school near your location and asking around for any students who are hoping to do something do with sound in the film industry this would have been something that would have given the film a much more better quality of the sound and it's something that they would have been able to do for next to nothing therefor it wouldn't have been a big chunk of the film budget and yet this is something that quite clearly never happened as the sound that we ended up getting just sounds bad with it making the makers of this film look like they had no quality control as they just let the film be released with this dreadful sound.
I really is hard to say on if this film is mean to be a horror comedy or not as while the film does feature some jokes in it. Alot of those jokes just aren't that good with the film having a running joke in which a newscast will repeat something that we've already seen with the directors name being mentioned at the bottom of the screen and that's it with even the characters acting so dumb that they could be in a comedy yet it's those jokes that do make the film feel like a horror comedy albeit one that is more in favor of being a comedy then a horror film when the balance really did need to be split equally with Darbie herself being a good example of this as even she is the films main villain she does get alot of moments to show us the fact that she is just a doll. With the fact that her idea of getting drunk is drinking root beer and the fact that all of her clothes are pink or have pink in them really playing into the main idea of these characters just being dolls something which the other characters to play into when they mention the fact that alot of them did get other toy sets whilst Ditzy Darbie never did and therefor only has the ne set of clothes which is a funny idea but the film never does anything with it as we never get to see her struggle to to choose what to wear in the morning or see her try not to get anything on her one and old dress these are things that are perfectly made for Ditzy Darbie as they would have played into the fact that there was only one toy set made for her and even tho it's a small thing to have in the film it is something that would have made for a decent running joke in the film instead of having a news cast show up to just repeat everything that we've just seen.
Now the this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and thirteen minuets and twenty three seconds. This on paper should have been a perfect running time for this kind of film to have as these films don't typically have that long of a running time in the first place but given the fact that it takes well over twenty minuets for the films plot to start of properly and the fact that it takes till around the thirty minuet mark for us to get to out first kill of the film that it then the running time does become a problem but it's one that could have been fixed by the makers of this film just by having them cut out alot of the pointless slow motion shots of Darbie and cut down on the films over two minuet opening sequence and give that running time to getting to the films plot early and to getting us at the first kill alot more quicker wit the film having more then enough plot there to cover that amount of running time in the first place. This film really doesn't use it's running time all that wisely as the film doesn't take the time to fully develop its plot as the film instead spends more time in getting alot of the actors playing the various Darbie to go topless for literally no reason whatsoever and not use that running time to fully develop it's plot with it being painfully obvious that the makers of this film cared more about getting alot of the female actors topless then they did about fully developing the plot of the film. This is also something that does effect the films character development as none of the films characters get any kind of character development which to be fair is par the course for these kinds of films but it is something that should still be called out as that's how the makers of these film listen with it being made clear that they cared more about showing of a signed picture of The Munsters then they did about giving the characters any kind of character development but I really will admit that this film really does have some really bad pacing to it tho.
So now then as a slasher that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual kills that are actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual kills that are actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really bad. With the actor playing Darbie not only missing her target alot of the time so much so that it does make the kills more comical then it does scary but the films kills are also lame as anything to watch and are filled with CGI blood, look having CGI blood in this case does make sense as again the film would have had a small budget but having your leading actor missing her target alot of the time is just bad film making. With there not even being a kill in the film that could be called the best ill of the film as they are all equally lame with them all having CGI blood in them and it's the same effect as well a it's just blood spurting up int the air which is fine for one kill but it's in all of them and it is something that does make you wonder what the quality control was like for this film as they are letting so many small things slip threw the cracks here that it does end creating one big problem with these things being made worse when you take into count that Darbie is missing all of her targets alot of the time and heck they even show us clear as day that she's not even close to hitting Danger Darbie which is just bad editing and is something that very easily could rea;;y have been fixed just by cutting to close up shot of Darbie it's that easy of a fix and yet the makers of this film clearly really didn't care enough to fix this mistake with the rest of the films kills being just as bad as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at lea
st.
Overall does it seven need saying what I think of this film by now as yeah even for a cheaply made horror film this film is bad as even The Mouse Trap whilst that film does have it's flaws still had decent sound and kills going for it this film doesn't even have those going for it in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now the i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad thigs that are in this very film in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 0 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from Tenor , Amazon . Co . Uk , IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images from this film being Google Images simply because Google Images actually has images from this film really are up and on Google Images and plus pretty much much all of the images that I personally found on Google Images were all really very fairly high quality and as well as being as really very fairly high definition as well and so then horror fans we end this review as we always do with really our one and true goddess Elvira wishing us all some really very unpleasant dreams.
