Black Devil Doll inhabits a special place in my video library: dwelling in the darkened corner of the bottom rack where sit other "Films that I'm Pretty Sure I'm Going to Hell For Enjoying."  This film, produced in 2007, had been the talk of many indie video newsletters and websites, mainly due to its incredibly outrageous premise and advertising campaign: "Filmed in Negroscope....Rated X by an All-White Jury."  Simply put, it was a movie I knew I had to see, for better or worse.

The story begins with a young, busty woman named Heather sitting in her living room.  Bored, and finding her friends too busy having sex to actually answer their phones, she starts futzing around with a Ouija board, only to conjure up the spirit of a recently-executed Black militant leader who comes to life in the form of a diminutive puppet.  After the initial shock, Heather and the trash-talking doll, who declares his name to be Mubia, engage in a conversation.  At the end of the talk, Heather realizes she's "totally fallen in love" with Mubia, and the two embark on a fast romance.

Soon, however, it becomes apparent that Mubia desires more and more "white meat," so Heather arranges for a group of similarly built women (i.e. having gigantic fake boobs) for Mubia to poke about with.

The entire film of Black Devil Doll just screams WRONG, as the film is full of nudity, violence, crude language, cruder sex, racism, sexism, flatulence jokes, dookie, dirty "salad tossing," golden showers, and worse.  Just about any disgusting thing that the writers (Shawn Lewis and Mitch Mayes) could dream up has apparently been put into the film.  The buxom group of white women are abused in various ways by the black devil doll, who usually then proceeds to fornicate with the women.  The plot and story is just so outrageous that it's frankly unbelievable; completely ludicrous yet undeniably amusing (if one can stand the grossness factor).  This is probably the most tasteless film ever made, a sort of bastard child of Team America, Meet the Feebles, and one of the Dolemite films.

Considering the nature of the project, Jonathan Lewis's film is actually competently made, with a fast pace that is always plowing forward.  There's nary a dull moment to be found in the film, and usually the screen is dominated by some sort of wild and woolly situation.  The puppet moves around pretty well, and interacts nicely with the human characters.  There are several mind-boggling scenes, including extended and graphic sex scenes between humans and puppet, including a homosexual rape, and a scene where the puppet expels acidic fecal matter.  Filmed using consumer-grade cameras, the images are pretty sharp and actually look decent.  John Osteen's camera set-ups capture the action nicely, making for a film that honestly looks better than it really should.  Of course, it must be said that Lewis constantly fixes his cameras on either the nastiest elements of his film (such as showing a vomit-covered toilet) or on large breasts.

In many ways, Lewis does a fine job of representing the roots of exploitation and blaxploitation by going for bottom-grade outrageous content that only ends up garnering attention for the film and setting Black Devil Doll apart from just about anything else ever produced.  The soundtrack in the film done by musical group Giallos Flame also nicely captures the mood of '70s grindhouse pictures.

Really, one's tolerance for this film could come down to the fact of whether or not the ridiculously offensive content in the film would be acceptable and/or funny.  In many ways, this film is just too outrageous and almost goes for overkill by throwing a parade of debauchery and depravity onscreen.  Most of the gags in the film are somewhat unfunny actually, but the constant envelope-pushing content just becomes hilarious. 

The acting is generally horrible, the frankly moronic characters almost across-the-board annoying and unlikable, and even at 72 minutes, the film has at least fifteen minutes of filler.  The story ends at about the one hour mark, and the credits begin to play but are filled out for twelve-plus minutes by an extra scene (where the Black Devil Doll orders delivery fried chicken) that's not particularly funny and doesn't add anything to the film.

Lowest Common Denominator Entertainment released this picture on DVD with five commentary tracks (several by the actors, crew and director, one by fans of the film, one by the Black Devil Doll himself), some behind the scenes footage, bonus animation (that's actually pretty funny) and a audience reaction track.  It's a pretty neat DVD package, although the film will likely be an acquired taste at best for all but the least discriminating viewer.

As should be obvious, this film is inappropriate for almost all audiences.  Unless you have no problem viewing incredibly outrageous, ridiculously offensive content, you may as well forget about this one.  This would be completely off limits to younger viewers due to the violence and sexual content alone, but the language and crude content really takes this to the next level.

I'm not sure how I feel about this film; it was amusing at some level, but it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth.  Black Devil Doll is the kind of film that is so over-the-top that it would certainly appeal to the younger generation of horror/exploitation/cult film fans, but for those who appreciate the older more subtle genre efforts, the bludgeon approach taken by this film would probably seem ludicrous.  The film is well made, but obviously thinks its cooler than it maybe is; containing at one point, a moment when a character gives a product placement advertisement directly to the audience.  I'm giving it a recommendation only to really twisted audience members who probably would enjoy this parade of bad taste;  I enjoyed Black Devil Doll, but might not admit that to everyone.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age