NEW YORK, Feb 27 — Here at The Lineup we’re big fans of scary dolls, so with the release of the new spooky-doll thriller The Boy last month, we thought it might be high time to revisit some of the creepiest, scariest, and deadliest dolls in the history of the cinema. In order to keep this list manageable, we’ve focused exclusively on “dolls”, and knocked killer puppets, possessed ventriloquist dummies, manic mannequins, and any other similar entities out of the running. So without further ado, who are the five scariest dolls from horror movies?
1. Chucky, from the Child’s Play series
When people today think “killer doll,” chances are the first thing that comes to mind is Chucky from Child’s Play. Thank the inspired vocal casting of Brad Dourif as the voice of Chucky, and as occult serial killer Charles Lee Ray (named for real-life murderers Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald, and James Earl Ray), who transfers his soul into the seemingly innocuous doll. Like many of his slasher film contemporaries, Chucky became a horror icon and spawned a whole passel of sequels, with the most recent being 2013’s Curse of Chucky, written and directed by series creator Don Mancini.
2. All the dolls from Dolls
Beating Child’s Play to theatres by a year, Stuart Gordon’s Dolls presents an equally grisly but very different story of deadly playthings. Equal parts twisted fairy tale (from the screenwriter of Troll, no less) and old dark house film, Dolls crams every shadowy frame with tons of creepy dolls. Not to mention the doll-like fate that befalls one of the doomed punk girls who takes refuge in the old house, or the grisly discovery of what lies beneath those porcelain features...
3. Annabelle, from The Conjuring and Annabelle
James Wan has made a career out of movies about spooky dolls and puppets, so there’s no way that he wasn’t going to make this list. While the possessed doll from 2013’s The Conjuring may have been an adjunct to that movie’s plot, it quickly stole the show and even earned its own spin-off film which, while maybe not as effective as its progenitor, deserves props for its Manson-esque cult backstory. To make Annabelle even creepier, she’s inspired by an actual haunted Raggedy Ann doll that’s currently held in a glass case just like the one you see in The Conjuring in the collection of real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.
4. “He Who Kills”, from Trilogy of Terror
Trilogy of Terror may have been a three-part anthology film originally released as an ABC Movie of the Week in 1975, but what everyone remembers about it is the Zuni fetish doll “He Who Kills” who terrorises Karen Black in the final segment, “Amelia.” Adapted by Richard Matheson from his short story “Prey,” the crude doll with its tiny spear and piranha-like teeth is made all the more terrible by the segment’s grim conclusion.
5. Talky Tina, from The Twilight Zone episode “Living Doll”
While many of us may be more familiar with The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror spoof “Clown Without Pity,” the original killer doll on film is really Talky Tina from the 1963 Twilight Zone episode “Living Doll.” Inspired by the Chatty Cathy dolls of the era that were produced by Mattel, Talky Tina’s ominous and unforgettable lines like “I’m Talky Tina and I’m going to kill you,” were actually brought to life by prolific voice actress June Foray, who also provided the voice for the original Chatty Cathy dolls.
For as long as we’ve made dolls, puppets, mannequins, and other human-shaped figures, they have haunted our nightmares, and judging by the success of modern films like The Conjuring, Annabelle and The Boy, they’ll probably be with us for a long time to come. Our very own Robert the Doll was even the subject of a 2015 film, though they didn’t keep his incredibly creepy real-life visage. Of course, to keep this list down to size, we had to leave some good ones out, like that terrifying clown doll in Poltergeist, or the creepy doll from The X-Files episode “Chinga”, co-written by none other than Stephen King.
Did we leave your favourite creepy movie doll off our list? Tell us in the comments! — The Lineup/Reuters
* This story was originally featured on The-Line-Up.com. The Lineup is the premier digital destination for fans of true crime, horror, the mysterious, and the paranormal.
