Devil Doll (film)

Devil Doll is a 1964 British horror film directed and produced by Lindsay Shonteff. It stars Bryant Haliday, William Sylvester, and Yvonne Romain. George Barclay and Lance Z. Hargreaves wrote the screenplay, based on a story by Frederick Escreet Smith. The plot follows an evil stage hypnotist and his dummy, Hugo.

The story begins with the hypnotist and magician "The Great Vorelli" and Hugo performing for a full house in London. Tension is visible between the two, and Vorelli keeps Hugo locked in a cage between shows. American reporter Mark English is assigned to cover Vorelli and brings his girlfriend, wealthy heiress Marianne Horn, to another performance. Vorelli asks for a volunteer, and Mark encourages Marianne to go up. Vorelli hypnotizes her and makes her dance the twist. During the ventriloquism act, Hugo rises from his chair and walks around on his own. Mark, wanting to understand the trick, gets Marianne to invite Vorelli to her aunt’s charity ball. At the ball, Hugo takes a knife from the buffet and tries to stab Vorelli, stopping only when Vorelli concentrates his will. The audience thinks it is part of the act. Mark secretly examines Hugo and finds no clockwork, space for an operator, or any other mechanism that would let him walk. That night, Vorelli stays at the aunt’s mansion and rapes Marianne after subduing her will. Hugo appears in Mark’s room, pleads "Help me ... 1948 ... Berlin," and vanishes. Marianne falls into a semi-coma that doctors cannot treat. In a lucid moment, she tells Mark, "He keeps calling me" and "Make him stop." Mark realizes she is under Vorelli’s hypnotic control and investigates Vorelli’s past. A colleague reveals Vorelli was a medical doctor who dabbled in Eastern magic and was disbarred. The colleague directs Mark to Mercedes, a former assistant in Berlin. She explains that another assistant, Hugo, worked for Vorelli in 1947 and was hypnotized to feel no pain as part of their act. Mercedes would catch them in strange conferences. One night, Vorelli stabbed Hugo on stage, and Hugo reacted with pain. Hugo was comatose for three months, during which Vorelli transferred Hugo’s soul into the dummy, causing Hugo’s death. The death was ruled an accident, and no one believed Mercedes, though a theatre worker testified he saw the dummy move after Hugo screamed. Mark suspects Vorelli hypnotized Hugo to die from the knife wound,