Up next in my 30-some movie Full Moon spree is Ragdoll, an entry in FM’s (thankfully) short-lived “Urban Horror” (made by white people) series. Much like the Full Moon/Tempe relationship, the urban (I hate that term, it’s offensive IMO) series produced some decent flicks, and some horrible ones like Killjoy and Killjoy 2, which I will review here in the next couple of weeks. In watching Charles Band’s vidcast from last week, Killjoy 3 is coming to which all I have to say is “why?”

Anyway.

Ragdoll opens up with a women trying to cast, as well learn, a spell attempting to protect her house. Unfortunately, this does not work and she ends up getting waxed by a wireframed, headless entity. The death scene is pretty crappy, but what else am I supposed to expect here? Funny note- the house in which she resides is the exact same house used in Stitches. HA!

Flash-forward to today and we see an older woman doing some good ol’ witchcraft-like conjuring which is interrupted by her “dope-ass” rapper son. Of course this upsets her and she tries to explain to him that her work, much like the internet, is serious business which he pretty much blows off.

Kwame (her son) and his rap crew are in the process of “making it big” and are approached by several agent-types, the last of which is a big-time “organized crime” gangsta drug dealer type who reminds me of a slightly less obese Suge Knight. He tries to back the group into a corner in hopes of signing them, but Kwame essentially tells him to sod off.

Suge lite doesn’t take kindly to this and as a result he sends his brothers (one normal thug type, and another a flamboyantly gay one who can dr jeckyl/mr. hyde it into a total hardass at a moment’s notice) to beat the stuffing out of kwame’s grandma.

Kwame is unconvincingly pissed and since witchery runs in his blood, he does some conjuring of his own and brings forth the “Shadow Man” who looks like Reverend Run crossed with that lady on the internet with giant bulging eyes. He strikes a deal with the Shadow Man to take out Suge lite and his brothers but is also informed that as a part of this arrangement, he owes the Shadow Man. Kwame quickly, and stupidly, promises him anything he wants. The only stipulation Kwame demands is that his gran suffers no more. Shadow Man agrees.

Shadow Man chuckles like an idiot and inserts the “killing spell” into Kwame’s grandmother’s creepy looking rag doll who immediately cackles to life and takes off on the floor (shot POV puppet master style) to get down to work. God damnit, this just got 90 times lamer.

Suge’s brother is the first to go down, shortly after which one of Kwame’s group mates gets waxed via a knitting needle by the doll. Hmm. Of course Kwame thinks Suge’s other brother is responsible for this, so he immediately rushes to the hospital to check on grans and runs into Suge at one point and his flamboyant brother the second time. Gran’s doing fine, by the way, but Suge and crew of course make vague threats should the killing of his boys continue. Of course, flamboyance goes down next, as does another of Kwame’s group-mates.

It’s become clear now that for every villain the rag doll takes down, one of Kwame’s homies is going to go too. This leaves us with two people left, Kwame and his girlfriend. Kwame realizes what is going on and begins freaking out (you shouldn’t have made the deal, tool shed) because, obviously, he doesn’t want his girl to die.

I’ll chill on the summary for there. I will say that the ending is kind of cool, yet expected.

Now..thoughts. This movie was unintentionally (maybe?) HILARIOUS. There are so many little things that are glaring mistakes and short cuts such as the rap group scenes where they are rapping into mics that are not even plugged in – no XLR cable..at all. The acting is cheesily overdone and hilarious as well.

In conclusion, this one’s pretty funny and enjoyable of course taken with a grain of salt. I’d definitely suggest the rent or Netflixing of this, definitely would pass on buying though.. however if that’s your thang, it can be found on Amazon brand spankin new for $5.99 for the DVD.

*** out of 5.
[Ragdoll on Amazon]