The Mannequin

Everybody knows the Kim Cattrall movie was an outlier. The Twilight Zone and Christopher Eggleston’s Doctor Who taught us those model dummies bear watching. You never know when they might come alive and do something weird, especially this one. Up-and-coming fashion-designer Sofia Rojas should have been more suspicious since it came with her newly refurbished loft. Extra bonuses always turn out to be costly in horror movies, including hers. That would be John Berardo’s The Mannequin, which releases today on VOD.

Years ago, sleazy glamour photographer Jack Bernard murdered wannabe pin-up model Ruth Calvert in the loft. Then he murdered several more models in decades that followed. Perhaps he is still killing from beyond the grave, using the mannequin Rojas dubs “Alice Baldwin” as his Chucky-like vessel. Sometimes, the spirits of his victims also appear to be present, but they are never helpful—quite the contrary.

Regardless, Rojas’s first night in her new loft turns out to be a rough one. Several months late, her sister Lianna moves in, hoping to pick up Sofia’s fashion mantle as well. She will have the help and the hindrance of their friends, Hazel and Nadine. Although they resent some of Lianna’s poor coping techniques, they still try support her, especially when her behavior takes a disturbing turn. Unfortunately, the time they spend with her means they are also “marked” by the force controlling the mannequin, whether they believe it or not. Super-reluctantly, Lianna seeks the help of her ghost-chasing YouTuber ex-boyfriend Peter, who launches a red alert as soon as he runs a basic internet search on the loft.

The best way to enjoy The Mannequin is by accepting it as the retro B-movie it presents itself to be. Both the tone and the energy level are maddeningly inconsistent. Yet, there are several highly amusing sequences, starting with the black-and-white throwback prologue. Peter’s half-baked exorcism scenes are also quite funny thanks to Maxwell Hamilton’s deadpan delivery as Lianna’s nebbish ex. Shireen Lai also shamelessly chews the scenery as the advantageously-married Nadine, like she is auditioning for the Real Housewives franchise. However, the designing siblings are both disappointingly bland.

Some of the film’s roughness should have been buffed out during either script development or the editing process. Nevertheless, the goofy and gory notes compliment each other nicely. Frankly, most horror fans are used to taking the good with the bad, or vice versa. In the case of The Mannequin there is more than enough positive to make the tradeoff worthwhile, at least when it hits ad-supported streaming platforms. Recommended for its old school meathead charms, The Mannequin releases today (10/14) on VOD.