A Boy and His Doll -- PIN: A Plastic Nightmare (1988)

I would describe my reading habits as "fits and bursts." When I was younger, I was a definition bookworm, but these days I'm choosier and have a lot less spare time. Because of this, I've developed a fascination with pulp horror paperbacks from the 70's and 80's, those trashy little treasures with covers as bombastic and bizarre as their cousins at the video store. These dime store gems are pure entertainment from start to finish, written with breathless readability and usually short enough to tear through in an afternoon, leaving your brain scrambled with soapy drama and atrocious gore.

Some of these books had real talent behind the schlock and one of these is Andrew Neiderman, the pen behind the ultimate pulp novel success story, The Devil's Advocate. Along with his own books, he currently works as a ghostwriter for V. C. Andrews, continuing her saga of twisted aristocracy for generations to come. The seeds of that theme--morose wealthy families with mysterious allure and terrible secrets--perhaps even Neiderman's "audition" to take on Andrews' legacy, arrived in 1981 with his slim but powerful horror novel, PIN (which, full disclosure, I really did tear through in an afternoon). A film version followed in 1988, where it became lost among countless other Canuxploitation video releases at the time. But I'm here today to spread the glorious news of this pin I found in the haystack.

Leon and Ursula are the children of Dr. Linden (Terry O'Quinn), a small-town physician who keeps a skinless plastic dummy named Pin in his office as a teaching aid. To put his younger patients at ease with the unnerving dummy, the doctor throws his voice to make Pin speak, and the two exchange musings over the prognosis like colleagues. The doctor's children often sit in on his examinations, and have a timid friendship with Pin under their father's supervision (after all, he can't speak if Dr. Dad's not in the room).

Leon is especially fascinated by Pin, sneaking into the doctor's office after hours to speak to him alone--only to one day stumble upon a nurse taking advantage of Pin's anatomically correct features. Traumatized, seemingly more for Pin than himself, Leon makes it his mission to take Pin home to live with them, an obsession that carries on for years.

Who could resist those puppy dog eyes?

As they grow up, the children live fairly sheltered lives--Leon takes comfort in it while Ursula fights every step--until, in their teen years, both parents die in a car accident. Leon's first thoughts are to rescue Pin from his father's office and finally bring him home. Ursula is naturally against this, but Leon insists that Pin is part of the family and that families stick together. It doesn't take long for Leon to reveal the lengths of his devotion to Pin: dressing him in his dead father's clothes, covering his face and hands in latex skin, and of course, adopting Pin's soft, even voice.

Yeah, this is better.

While Leon writes bad poetry and languishes on their inheritance, Ursula wisely takes up a job at the library to get out of the house. There she meets Stan, a local student (in the book, a Vietnam vet) and a genuinely nice guy, and the two begin seeing each other. Leon feels that his sister is moving away from him and Pin, and he takes escalating measures to stop it, which--ahem--vary between the book and the movie. (More on that later.)

Things come to a head when Leon lures Stan to the house and attacks him, blaming his outburst on Pin's influence. Of course, because she's seen it coming from the beginning, Ursula is instantly suspicious and it doesn't take long for her to find evidence of Leon's sins. (In the movie, she finds Stan's watch under the couch and a wet spot on the carpet; in the book, she spots Stan's prosthetic leg in the fireplace.) In a whirl of emotion, Ursula runs out of the room and comes back with an ax, hacking Pin to pieces as Leon watches in horror. Leon is traumatized once again and regresses to a catatonic state--while book hints at his lingering nerve damage early on, the film portrays his paralysis as a direct result of the psychotic break. The book and the film end with Leon sitting in his wheelchair by the window, unmoving, the identity of Pin now having completely consumed him.

Whereas the novel is unmistakably psychological, the movie takes a cheekier approach, playing with the possibility that this family drama could turn into a living doll creepshow at any moment. When Pin speaks for the first time, the audience has a few moments of discomfort before its revealed that Dr. Distant Dad is a secret ventriloquist. When Pin sits up in the backseat, it's only briefly terrifying before being explained away as the results of plain old physics--hollow things move around in a moving car. It's a nice touch, and it works. Pin is in the eye of the beholder, and if you believe he is alive, then he is.

Alive enough.

One of the novel's more fascinating aspects is its sexuality, and all the messy, humiliating, inexplicable moments puberty brings. There's this notion, especially in film, that children are so delicate, so pure and innocent that the slightest depravity can warp them for life. It's not as if that isn't true--the world we live in is full of awful things that exist to corrupt our precious babies, so what is a terrified parent to do? Bubble them inside safe spaces lined with fear and ignorance and hope they never ever get out. In this sense, Leon and Ursula represent both the strengths and pitfalls of that parenting tactic.

Ursula is portrayed with a healthy sexual curiosity from the start. An early scene shows her, no more than eight, flipping through a dirty magazine and admiring a model's breasts, wondering aloud to her brother if hers will ever get that big. It's strangely touching by its very innocence, and all the more shattering when their mother walks in and rips the magazine away in disgust. Despite her sheltering, Ursula enjoys her sexuality as she gets older, until the inevitable happens: she gets pregnant. Dr. Dad performs her abortion, which pretty much destroys any notion of being with a man again...for a while, anyway.

Meanwhile, Leon is the polar opposite of a sexual awakening. Where his sister blossoms, he shrivels to almost manic asexuality, due in no small part to his own traumatizing first encounter with sex and his parents' stifling discipline. When his neat-freak mother finds muddy prints on her rug, she forbids him to invite friends to the house ever again. His stoic father is cold and unknowable--his soft side only comes out when he lends a papery voice to a horrifying doll. Leon's only confidants are the wise and gentle Pin, the only father figure he's ever known and Ursula, the beautiful little sister he adores and resents in equal measure. Leon denies he even has a sexuality and violently chastises Ursula for acknowledging her own. The film never directly addresses if Leon is overly protective or jealous of his sister, but the book makes it clear that he is very much in love with her, teetering on obsession.

"Pin, would you say grace?"

Their warped relationship is solidified by a couple of steamy scenes in the pages of the novel that were never going to make the movie. As curious preteens, they experiment with Pin under Leon's instruction based on his encounter with the nurse. As they grow older, Leon almost insists that Ursula use Pin exclusively to satisfy what their father called The Need, in an effort to keep her away from boys at school. When Stan enters the picture, Leon resorts to forcing Pin (and by extension, himself) upon Ursula, convinced that if she only remembers how good it used to be, she won't want to leave them. It's perhaps the most twisted scene in a very bizarre book, and it's definitely the moment that caught the attention of V.C. Andrews' estate.

The one thing that doesn't sit quite right with me is the film's focus on Leon's mental illness, and I do mean those italics. They go so far as to have Ursula tearfully diagnose him as a paranoid schizophrenic based on freehand library research. Portrayals of mental illness in movies rarely age well, but they are more tolerable if the film avoids giving the condition a name. Some may take issue with the "just plain crazy" explanation for various reasons, but to them I say this: Psycho is a masterpiece with the exception of that parlor scene at the end, where a smooth professional comes in to explain precisely what happened and why. For the sake of the story, it's better for the audience to draw their own conclusions from what the film presents rather than have a specific diagnosis.

He taught me how to please a woman and helps with my homework!

I have seen and read some wild stuff in my day, but few things have stuck with me like PIN. I have a soft spot for stories that take a concept and push it to the brink, unafraid to venture into the bizarre depths of human darkness. Both the book and the film are great campy fun with a streak of unnerving weirdness throughout, and they show just enough for the mind to chew on long after the credits roll. So if you have a rainy afternoon to yourself and wish to step into the world of the miserable incestuous upper class, then follow me into the doctor's office, and let Pin examine you.