Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on February 17, 2003, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Sex has been a part of horror cinema almost from the genre’s earliest days—it has been used as subtext, as a motivating emotion or, most often, to titillate. But horror movies truly about sex are rare—and so are genre movies as exacting and intense in exploring deviant pathology as Love Object.
In writer/director Robert Parigi’s hands, a story that could easily have been mined for crass exploitation becomes an uneasily observant and uncompromising psychological chiller. That phrase is usually used to describe movies that favor subtle creep-outs over visceral shocks, but despite Love Object’s low blood count, it’s as disturbing and frightening as anything seen on screen in recent years, announcing Parigi as a talent to be reckoned with and giving two up-and-coming young actors their best roles yet. All this, plus Udo Kier in a smoking jacket, puffing on a hookah.
While some viewers will no doubt find comparisons to Psycho in this film’s focus on a quiet, sexually stunted and ultimately unbalanced protagonist, Love Object’s true antecedent is Paul Bartel’s Private Parts; both films center on young men who sublimate their erotic insecurities by indulging in unhealthy relationships with sex dolls. But Kenneth (Desmond Harrington), a writer of technical instruction manuals, doesn’t become “involved” with your garden-variety blow-up doll; he orders a costly hi-tech model named “Nikki” off a website that allows him to mold the silicone mannequin’s face and body in his preferred image.
The features happen to match those of Lisa (Melissa Sagemiller), a shy young woman who is hired to assist Kenneth on a major project. As an attraction begins to develop between them, Kenneth uses Nikki as a surrogate to “practice” his interaction with Lisa, yet even as things heat up with his new flesh-and-blood girlfriend, the doll retains a possessive hold on his mind. Will the strength of Lisa’s burgeoning love be enough to break Nikki’s hold on Kenneth? Not bloody likely—but even hardened horror fans may be startled by just how wrong things go for all parties involved.
Right from the start, Parigi sets up a modern environment where sex is an object—a commodity to be bought and sold and experienced by proxy, something to be spied upon (Kenneth and his apartment building’s manager, played by Kier, take turns watching each other through peepholes) and distrusted. When Kenneth’s boss (Rip Torn) suspects Kenneth’s developing interest in Lisa, he disapproves not because the distraction might impact productivity, but because it might set the stage for a harassment lawsuit. Yet Parigi leavens the bleakness with a generous streak of black humor, pitched at just the right level that it doesn’t detract from the overall seriousness of the situation.
Most crucially, he and Harrington maintain a level of empathy for Kenneth; for all his social awkwardness, he’s a likable guy at first, and the understanding the director and actor build for him keep the audience rooting for his and Lisa’s relationship to work out. By the time the story turns (much) darker, we’ve developed sufficient insight into Kenneth’s mind that the most horrific developments feel inevitable instead of contrived, and Sagemiller (a most appealing actress heretofore confined by dreck like Soul Survivors and Sorority Boys) easily takes over and engages the viewer’s sympathies.
With Love Object, Parigi demonstrates that he’s not only a genre filmmaker with real ideas, but knows how to convey them most effectively on screen. Instead of showing off in the manner of some first-time directors, he takes a coolly objective approach to the material; the film was shot on Super-16 but postproduced on video, which flattens out the image, reflecting the oppression Kenneth feels in his life. Yet Parigi is not above having a bit of fun at times, including naming a couple of characters after past genre directors—though it’s telling that Kier’s Radley (as in Metzger) and Torn’s Mr. Novak (as in Harry) are named after sex-film pioneers, not horror auteurs.
