Dollman (1991)

Movie Info

Mom…why does he look so crappy?

A police officer named Brick Bardo (Tim Thomerson) pursues a criminal named Stolvan Sprug (Frank Collison) and ends up travelling through dimensions to end up on Earth.  There, Brick discovers he’s a foot tall and made himself the target of gang led by Braxton (Jackie Earle Haley) who is working with Sprug.  Brick must help a woman named Debi Alejandro (Kamala Lopez) and her son (Humberto Ortiz) free their neighborhood from the gang and stop Braxton who could hold the fate of the world in his hands.

Directed by Albert Pyun, Dollman is an action-adventure science-fiction film.  It was part of Full Moon Entertainment’s series of films.  The low budget film was a straight-to-video release and had a comic spin-off limited series by Eternity Comics.

Like most Full Moon Films, Dollman is cheap…very cheap.  Based on the old premise of a small man in a big world, Dollman taps into other films like The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) in its style, but despite being made over thirty years later manages to look worse.

I’m a little head in a big world

With low budget films and poor actors, I wish Full Moon movies would work on their scripts more.  Some of their premises like Dollman are somewhat clever.  Unfortunately, premise doesn’t equal a good script and Dollman is a great example of this.  Sprug kind of becomes irrelevant, and the neighborhood vs. the gangs (and politicians) kind of is left rather underdeveloped.

Tim Thomerson, who also starred in Full Moon’s Trancer series, tries to make a go of this film.  He plays Brick as a Dirty Harry type of character who does not like women, children, or cockroaches.  He has little support from the rest of the cast though Jackie Earle Haley (who plays Braxton) has had a strong career in recent years and did go on to be nominated for an Oscar (he also was part of the maligned Nightmare on Elm Street remake, so I guess it balances out).

Don’t laugh at me!!! I’m gonna be a contender…an Oscar contender!!!

What is inexcusable is that the movie doesn’t at least attempt to do more chromakey shots with Thomerson.  Miniaturized humans have been appearing for years in films and this movie didn’t even really try.  Brick usually appeared next to some dirt or other items…at least give him some oversized props for fun!  The few imposed images that the movie uses are rather cheap looking.

Dollman isn’t Full Moon’s best outing, but it is worth checking out if you watch other Full Moon features since he does pop-up on occasion in spin-offs films.  The movie doesn’t fall into the so-bad-it-is-good category, but really into the just bad films.  Dollman shows up again in Bad Channels in 1992 and headlines again in Dollman vs. Demonic Toys in 1993.

Related Links:

Dollman vs. Demonic Toys (1993)