If I had gone into the mystery film “Dollhouse” cold, seeing director Shinobu Yaguchi’s name in the closing credits would have made me doubt my own eyes.
Yaguchi has long been Japan’s leading purveyor of smartly crafted comedies with a zero-to-hero arc. Among the best is the 2001 “Waterboys,” a feel-good comedy about a boys’ synchronized swimming team that inspired countless knock-offs, and the 2017 “Survival Family,” whose story of a dysfunctional family forced to fend for itself when the world’s electric grid goes down was both funny and prescient.
The premise of “Dollhouse” — a creepy doll wreaks havoc on the humans around it — is a horror genre staple, one domestic example being Hideo Nakata’s 2015 “Ghost Theater,” in which a malevolent doll spreads terror and confusion in a small theater troupe. But Yaguchi’s take is disturbingly different, drawing on elemental parental fears and ancient strains of Japanese culture and religion.
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