Forget your Mannequin whimsy. Arne Mattsson’s The Doll is a dive into the deep, dark end of the loneliness pool, where the water is freezing, and the only thing keeping you afloat is a hollow piece of storefront fiberglass.

Per Oscarsson, a man who could look haunted while eating a sandwich, plays a night watchman who decides he’s had enough of the human race. He liberates a mannequin from the department store and sets up house. It’s not a heist movie; it’s a slow-motion collapse of the psyche. He doesn’t just talk to the doll. Instead, he lives for her.

While the premise sounds like it could’ve been a sleazy proto-slasher or a bizarre Twilight Zone riff, Mattsson treats it like high-art tragedy. This isn’t some magic-doll-comes-to-life romp. It’s a claustrophobic character study that asks: Is an imagined love better than no love at all?

In our world of AI chatbots and watching porn on our phones, not to mention Anton LaVey’s continual mentions of mannequin and android-based love dolls replacing humans, this film is quite prescient. 

If you like your cinema moody, Swedish and psychologically taxing, this is your bag, baby. It’s a film that understands that the scariest things aren’t under the bed. They’re the things we invent to keep from being alone.

You can watch this on Cultpix.