“Do not spend more than one turn of the hourglass with him. EVER”. That is the warning The Dollmaker (Daniel Martin Berkey, Let Me Make You a Martyr) to his customers. Of course, the warning is ignored with horrible consequences.

The dolls he makes are special, allegedly containing the soul of a lost loved one. Here it’s that of Jenna (Perri Lauren) and Rick’s (Sean Meehan) young son. And when things go wrong, they go very wrong indeed.

The Dollmaker is a nine minute short from director Alan Lougher (So Dark) and scriptwriter Matias Caruso (Mayhem). This is a million miles away from Mayhem’s hyperactive violence. Inhabiting a place somewhere between The Monkey’s Paw and Pet Sematary, The Dollmaker packs more unease into its few minutes than most Annabelle clones do into a feature length film.

Saying more would be giving too much away. I’ll just tell you that The Dollmaker is available via the “Alter” channel on YouTube, and it’s embedded here. Just don’t spend more than one turn of the hourglass watching it…