A short history of creepy dolls in the movies

With their blank eyes and stupid smiling mouths, its easy to imagine dolls have evil motives.

But why are we so scared of dolls?

What is it that makes them creepy?

But its hard to look at him and not shudder.

This time, though, the dummy is definitely the less pleasant partner.

In the final story of this anthology horror, Hugo is the dummy of ventriloquist Maxwell Frere.

And thats not even the creepiest bit of the story.

This is, basically, the story most people think of when you say evil dummy.

And Hugo is appropriately creepy looking, too.

And sure enough, the doll comes to life and tries to kill her.

I mean, its not like she wasnt warned.

Its never really explained, which just makes it scarier.

There are quite a few more creepy dolls between here and there, after all.

it’s possible for you to kind of see their point look at that thing!

The plot is yet another tale of a vulnerable ventriloquist falling foul of his domineering dummys murderous urges.

Funny how things change, isnt it?

For the sake of brevity, lets just includePuppet Masterand move on.

So,Puppet Mastersees a puppet maker create several living toys before killing himself to escape Nazi spies.

Thats the lesson May learned from her mother, when she was presented with this doll.

At least she is until her box gets broken by a class of blind children.

Then May decides she needs to make a new friend of her own.

She definitely looks the part, though.

Saw (2004)

The doll:Billy

James Wan is a one man creepy doll revival.

Chucky, eat your heart out.

The doll:Annabelle

And that brings us, finally, to Annabelle.

First introduced inThe Conjuring, shes now got a whole spinoff movie dedicated to her history.

Theres no ambiguity here, this doll is evil.

Or, more specifically, shes a vessel for evil.

When a Satanist took a liking to this already creepy-looking doll, she got even creepier.

Now, wherever she goes, she brings a horrifying demon that wants to harvest souls.

Annabelleis actually terrifying, and a lot of it is down to the design of the doll.

That means she looks extra creepy in the shadows.