Dolls are one of the basic themes in horror. It's been done over and over. And yet Dollhouse manages to stay engaging, mostly by switching the focus along the way. In the first part the daughter dies. This is weird. As a mother, who would leave 4-5 really young girls running around in the house and leave for groceries ? To a place so far she needs her bike. Not for one urgent thing but for a whole basket. Not even warning anyone when we've seen all the other mothers are just next door and are here. Who does that ?? This is crazy. But anyway, she finds a doll and treats it like her daughter. Probably would have been boring to stay at that. Second part, she gets pregnant and they have a new baby. The doll is forgotten for years until their daughter picks it up. Now we're in the classic living doll phase. It's a bit weird too. Why does Mai accept it and keeps the doll when it hurts her and gets her in trouble. When the other girl is bitten by the doll couldn't she have said something ? And as time passes more people witness the living doll, and they're still all pretty cool about it. The mother in law has the doll actually walk to her and climb on her back. Why doesn't she freak the fuck out a bit more than that ?? Really cool scene when the mother sees the doll with a paper bag on her head and beats it up, only to realize it was her daughter. This would have made another great focus switch, but it was clearly happening too soon in the movie to be real. I think later in the movie I kept waiting for a moment where an attempt to destroy the doll would turn out to be the daughter, but they never used it again. Probably very japanese, the girl has marks all over her body. Not only the father does not know, but it doesn't surprise anyone that he doesn't. Though the marks are not all new, and it doesn't seem like the mother noticed either. By this point most people are convinced. Third part is the exorcism. Several attempts, with successive experts. Change of pace, we don't see the daughter anymore, and not the doll too much either in the beginning. This is what made the movie the most interesting I think. It didn't get stuck in the potential too cliché of the first two parts. Loved it when the temple calls back to say "yeah, we'll make an exception for your doll, and even send someone to pick it up". Or when the cop just discarded the polaroid. Had the whole cinema burst out laughing. The youtube video thing was really great. Fun and useless on the first watch. Then half an hour later the exorcist watches and is like: [spoiler]Dude, there's an extra person there[/spoiler] ! But this also has a weird part. Despite being injured, given the acknowledged level of danger, how can the exorcist [spoiler]just abandon and let them deal with it on their own[/spoiler] ?? This is just insane. Not so sure about the ending. Suddenly out of nowhere the doll has the power to [spoiler]show illusion to people[/spoiler] ?? She never exhibited that before. Not sure how the scene where he's hitting with the shovel really fits. He was not hitting his wife, so what ? He was just hitting thin air ? Nice that it mirrors the [spoiler]youtube video, they're coming back with an extra person[/spoiler] but it's not like in the beginning where [spoiler]the doll is supposed to replace the daughter[/spoiler], it should not make them forget [spoiler]they have another one[/spoiler]. Despite some weird inconsistencies in each of them, the breakdown in different phases with different focus and using different aspects of classic doll horror gives it good pacing and keeps interest up over time. All that with relatively small need for effects. Great job.

To be honest，I am a little be shock.