After releasing Decadent Evil under his new Wizard Entertainment banner veteran producer Charles Band has decided to bring back the Full Moon brand name for the second release under the Wizard banner - which makes one wonder just how confident he was launching a new company with the Wizard name as it seems he may be worried about losing fans of the Full Moon brand who have stuck with the company through thick and thin despite diminishing returns. But Doll Graveyard is a small step in the right direction after the mediocrity that was Decadent Evil, even if it only runs a mere 59 minutes minus opening and end credits.

Starting in 1911 where a young girl playing with her cherished dolls accidentally breaks a vase and is forced by her abusive father to bury her playthings in the backyard. But when she goes to climb out of the hole she's made she ends up slipping and breaking her neck. Rather than face up to the accident the dad decides to bury him in the dirt with her dolls.

Flash forward to modern day where a new family is living in the house with brother Guy (Jared Kusnitz) and sister DeeDee (Gabrielle Lynn, who looks somewhat like Jennifer Love Hewitt) are left alone for the evening after their widowed dad decides to go out on a date. But first they have to finish their chores and Guy, while cleaning out the backyard, stumbles across one of the buried dolls, which he cleans up and brings into his room. From there we're given minimal plot as DeeDee invites over a couple of girlfriends, the expected group of guys from school show-up uninvited (of course), and Guy gets bullied by the jocks simply because he likes to collect action figures. Soon enough Guy ends-up possessed by the spirit of the little girl and unleashes the former dolls from their backyard burial in order to get revenge on the people in the house.

This gives us a few alright moments of mild bloodshed (like the "spike to the groin" scene) and some pretty cool looking villains, but due to the slim runtime the evil playthings are sadly underused which is too bad as the assortment of dolls created by Chris Bergshneider are pretty decent with a mustached World War II German solider and his spiked helmet, a elderly samurai and his sword, an African tribesman with a bone through his nose and a spear, and a baby doll who sports a gaping maw of sharp teeth.

Doll Graveyard may be a little sloppy in its scripting (the possession angle is almost too dumb for words) and could've used a bit of fattening up both in runtime and creature attacks, but it's still an okay timewaster even if Band may be a bit too enamored of this type of movie (Puppet Master, Blood Dolls, Demonic Toys, etc.). And it's certainly better than Wizard's first attempt giving us B-movie fans hope that the next film out, The Gingerdead Man, can continue the upward trend.

Visit Wizard Entertainment for more info and to order. Street date is October 25th. (Chris Hartley, 9/12/05)

Directed By: Charles Band.
Written By: August White.

Starring: Jared Kusnitz, Gabrielle Lynn, Kristyn Green, Anna Alicia Brock.

Picture Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: The transfer here is pretty passable and seems a bit fuzzy throughout for the most part. It doesn't look as good as their last release (Decadent Evil) and is just a step above VHS quality.

Extras: We get a trailer (plus trailers for Decadent Evil, Cinemaker, The Gingerdead Man, Monsters Gone Wild!, When Puppets And Dolls Attack, and Petrified), there's a "message from Charles Band" where he talks about his upcoming movies and action figures, a blooper reel, and an okay "making of" featurette that still feels a bit too congratulatory. There's also the expected ads for Full Moons toyline and website.