Review: The Curse of Robert the Doll is simple but effective entertainment
The horror genre has had a great evolution over the years, subgenres have been born from it that have been liked by locals and strangers, we have talked about several of them, their stories, their protagonists, and what they have done and contributed to pop culture today.
Without a doubt, a subgenre that has attracted a lot of attention is children’s horror, which ranges from possessed infants, and sects, to toys and dolls. Chucky is the clearest example we have of this and its popularity since it was created and has also been a source of inspiration for several others including the popular Anabelle from the saga and universe of films based on the Warren marriage cases.
All of this would not be possible if there were no real basis to tell these stories. One of the cases that has discreetly caused the most interest is that of Robert, a doll dressed as a sailor who since the beginning of the last century has been considered the ultimate toy. most haunted in the world.
Movies, books, comics, and even podcasts have talked about this peculiar children’s object, now a documentary has emerged that narrates its origins and helps us understand a little more about what it is and the curse of which people who do not have been victims. They have followed the rules when they have visited.
What is the Documentary movie about?
Considered the most haunted doll in the world, Robert the Doll lives behind glass in a museum in Key West, Florida, where every year thousands of visitors who do not follow his rules fall victim to a curse and suffer from serious illnesses, injuries, accidents, and even death, but what do they do to make Robert curse his victims? What evil entity lives inside this doll? This film is an exploration of what is presumed to be its true origin and its history since the first owners in 1905 and seeks to discover why this doll has caused horror to this day.
The idea of making documentaries of this type sounds attractive, but the problem is the execution they have on the data that is supposedly true, the management of information tends to be in favor of one of the parties involved, and very few of them are the who risk telling something new, something that we do not know and that is in the popular domain.
The documentary genre is as vast as horror but it is right here where the similarities between one and the other become more marked, there are some very good ones and others that are just a waste of time and resources that lead to nothing, that is why the latter whose veracity is called into question and as viewers we ask ourselves the question: What if everything we saw is true and what is not?
The dolls and toys used for something that derives from the supernatural are nothing new but they have gained great popularity and interest with stories such as Annabelle and the Chucky film saga and television series, the stories and subplots that they have The substance varies according to its time and the audience it was aimed at, some reliably claim to be true and there is even evidence in psychophonies and videos. While Annabelle is a real doll who has been blamed for being the protagonist in some scary cases, the movies tend to take things to another level, first by exaggerating things and making them scarier than they really are and then by Becoming part of a more completely fictional saga and even change the order of its base events, Chucky is probably the most famous doll, possessed by a fictional serial killer who seeks a human host through a voodoo ritual gone wrong and which supposedly will give him eternal life.
Throughout several very bad sequels, a reboot, and a television series, he has been included in much broader mythology and thus creating his universe, one that involves new characters such as his partner and love interest Tiffany with whom he even had a son, like this there are many examples of dolls or puppets that inhabit our world and that are supernatural, but there is one that is not so well known and it is the Robert doll that is on par with any of the aforementioned.
Shock Docs is a television series that airs on Travel Channel and Discovery+ and within its documentary programs they have released a documentary titled “The Curse of Robert the Doll”, its story is very similar to others that we already know, and what is described here. It aims to tell, in the form of testimonies and flashback recreations, its origin and how the supposed accidents, cases of bad luck, and deaths occurred that give rise to the legend of a curse that lasts to this day.
The narrative sequence of the documentary is divided into 2 parts that alternate, one that is the most interesting is the one that recreates and talks about the history of the Otto family, residents of Key West in Florida, United States, and especially Robert the son. who was the first owner and friend of the doll, after bringing it from Germany as a birthday gift this toy not only became his playmate but little by little it took over the child’s personality to the point of taking away his name and disturbing things, hence small subplots emerge based on the testimonies of those who have seen it, in general, it is about knowing the origin and what evil entities possess it.
This narrative includes many generations of people, both those who have visited it and been victims as well as those who have had it and what they have faced, it is recognized that its director Brian Knappmiller and producers Allison Berkley, Joseph Freed, Brian Henson, Brian Knappmiller and Vince Raisa did everything blind, they know the legend but were never present in the museum making recordings simply because it is prohibited to do so, the recreation of the interiors is an exact copy of how it is today, the house that the Ottos occupied and that it has changed owners over the years is real.
When we see the jumps from the recreations to the testimonies it seems that we are seeing 2 completely different things, it is also necessary to recognize that the family history is its most interesting part which could well have been a feature film leaving out the weakest part, Each person who participates and who narrates what has happened to them is not so interesting and more so because they are telling us an origin that is constantly interrupted.
What takes away much of the credibility of the documentary is the fact that it goes more towards the paranormal side that borders on the fantasy, while some think that everything is a setup charlatanry others believe that this is true, while in his story of recreation, we go from one or another unexpected shock to scandalous events that are very little credible, on the part of the people interviewed and who refer to them as potential victims of a curse do not provide any evidence to support their theory.
This is where things transform and this goes from pretending to be a serious documentary to mere entertainment that borders on the morbid. As such, it is undeniable that it keeps us interested in each of the things that happen and we want to know the conclusion of everything. and that in reality there is not, we never know if the people who apologized were accepted and their lives returned to a new normal, nor are we told that no one for 118 years occurred to the idea of destroying it, burning it, cutting it, bury it, the only thing they do is lock it in closets or suitcases.
Come on, you have to be very stupid to think and then act believing that if we lock this doll up nothing will happen to us, as a documentary they play a lot with the credibility of the story and the credibility that we as viewers have, the events that They should be more terrifying, they are only left with the assumption that something unintelligible is happening, the Robert doll is an exact recreation made by Jim Henson Creature Shop and we see how it has been worn down over the years until it has its current appearance.
Tyler Bachman is in charge of the few but effective special effects that we see during 110 minutes that range from a child wearing a suit that simulates that the doll can move and walk around the house to the gestures he has on an expressionless face, Robert’s personality is very particular and they emphasize it at every moment, something that is completely unnecessary if since we decided to watch the documentary we already know as an audience what we are getting into.
As expected, this documentary is very soft for the topic it addresses, it is so risk-free that it falls into the comfort zone of just scaring for the sake of scaring, the part of the medium that talks about what has happened to the doll also has no verifiable basis, she deduces that it is not a possession but a portal to another dimension where there are souls trapped in it. As an origin, they say that an African-American nanny had an extramarital affair with Mr. Otto, from whom a girl was born who died under mysterious circumstances. This mother’s sadness and anger is what triggers a curse in a voodoo rite she performs.
The above is one of the most talked-about theories but also one of the most absurd and soap opera-like because let’s see, a nanny has affairs with her employer, a daughter is born and no one notices if they live under the same roof? The fact that everything comes from a ritual that invokes demonic spirits falls into the typical Hollywood cliché to attract attention. There is more belief in the second theory that involves more that this doll, being brought from Germany without knowing how it was made, has a past. even more mysterious.
What we know not from this documentary but from other previous media is that the protagonist is the boy Robert Eugene Otto, known by his nickname Gene, a member of a respectable and wealthy family, on his birthday Robert/Jean received a special gift from his grandfather, a sailor doll that he bought from the German company Steiff during a trip he made through the country, a large figure, approximately one meter, an expressionless face with a minimalist appearance, shiny black eyes, reddish hair and a grimace in the form of a smile that at first glance is disturbing.
Another thing that is said is that Jean’s father was not known for having many friends and that it was the nanny who practiced and was very interested in black magic, religion, and voodoo that she placed a curse on the entire family. family through the doll in the purest dramatic style of, if I can’t have a family neither can you.
This is how strange things began to happen around them, relatives and the servants themselves heard the child talking to the doll, something that may seem natural and logical if it were not for the fact that another voice was also heard, a more distorted one. His parents were the first to discover that there was an unhealthy relationship between the boy and the doll, so much so that they treated him as if he were a human being.
At night screams could be heard from the child’s bedroom and on repeated occasions when the parents entered the room they only saw him sitting on the bed next to the Robert doll and a mess around him, some time later his other toys were gradually disappearing. Little by little, some had their heads cut off, others had their eyes gouged out, or Robert appeared in strange places where he had not been before.
It is said that this boy spent hours with the real Robert The Doll, he slept next to him and they played, naturally, and as the years went by he grew up and moved to Chicago and New York to study art, wanting to be one of the most famous painters. famous and representative of his town, as an adult he had a very complex personality since he constantly competed with the success of his wife Annette Parker. When they returned to live in his childhood home, he was reunited with the doll.
As the story goes, Gene’s wife never agreed or sympathized with the doll which was now her husband’s obsession and source of inspiration. The couple spent several decades in that house until Gene died in 1974 and then Annette’s. Two years later while Robert spent most of this time locked in a suitcase in the attic, after this the house was sold to a woman named Myrtle Reuter and then to its current owner.
In 1994 and after an incident that its owner had, the doll was donated to the East Martello Museum in Key West Florida, where and since then an atmosphere of historical terror has developed, it is currently behind glass, some visitors to the museum claim that This doll has caused misfortunes for not complying with the rules, which are:
- When you are in front of the doll, tell it your name and introduce yourself.
- Be polite and never disrespect him.
- If you are going to take a photograph, ask permission first.
- Say goodbye to him politely.
The Museum receives hundreds of letters, notes, and emails of apology each year that are sent by tourists who decided to break the rules, to do this is perhaps to expect that the doll will grant them forgiveness and there are many others in their minority who ask that the doll be permanently removed from the museum to prevent ill-intentioned onlookers from continuing this chain of disasters.
But it has not only been the curious who have been victims of this, there are also museum employees who tell of strange incidents that have happened to them with the doll, they say that on one occasion they received a visit from a team that wanted to record without permission. and the camera stopped working for no apparent reason in some of the videos that survived you can see Robert moving his legs, moving his head and even gesturing or the typical ones of the doll changing its pose even when it is locked, objects falling and They break, some others say that it has not happened or they have witnessed what supposedly happened.
As expected, marketing has not missed the opportunity to benefit from this particular legend, there are guided tours of the museum as well as the sale of merchandising ranging from key chains, t-shirts, official photographs, and various books with the history to replicas of Robert that we can even get in special editions.
The music composed by Ceiri Torjussen plays a very important role in this work and even more so in the recreations, this work is a mere tribute to all those easy horror films that with a couple of notes cause an effect on their audience.
In conclusion, The Curse of Robert the Doll is a simple but effective entertainment that aims to be something more serious, and that only gives us the reference that there are other productions based on this story that have been more successful at the time.
The Curse of Robert the Doll is now available on Prime Video and Discovery + platforms.
