My Experience With Killer Dolls
Child’s Play 3: Image From IMDB
Child’s Play
Like most people my age Child’s Play was my first experience of the Killer Doll subgenre. I remember seeing it at my Aunties in Scotland, which is odd as I don’t actually remember watching many other movies there (although it was also the place I saw my first episode of Friends)
To be honest, I wasn’t a fan of the original Child’s Play. It felt to serious and slow to me. I like it a little more nowadays, but I think the three sequels directly after are better.
Seed of Chucky, not so much.
The idea of a Killer Doll sounded cool, but something didn’t quite work. It was only when I saw the more humorous side of the Killer Doll subgenre like Stuart Gordon’s Dolls and Ronny Yu’s Bride of Chucky that I started to get invested. The humour was the key. Between giant vicious aliens, tiny fun space critters, and brutal unrelenting Slashers, I just didn’t have room for the original Chucky concept. But, once he started making jokes and hooking up with Tiffany, the subgenre felt reinvigorated. It felt more unique.
Annabelle: Image From IMDB
Other Killer Dolls
As mentioned, I loved Stuart Gordon’s Dolls. Mr Punch and the rest were great. I’ll always have time for Stuart Gordon and I’m sure he’s a director I’ll bring up a lot in my subgenre work.
I liked the puppets in Puppet Master more than I liked the original movie itself, although I did enjoy the weirdness of it all. In recent years Megan was good, although I haven’t seen the sequel. Annabelle was also decent, and probably something I should have rewatched for this. (Maybe I still will and mention it in a post somewhere) I can’t remember anything about Dead Silence other than the poster.
William Goldman’s Magic was a fantastic book which had some incredibly tense chapters and sequences. (Will try and watch the movie one day) I enjoyed reading it a lot, and it was great to see what else could be done with the subgenre. While it could be argued it’s not exactly a Killer Doll book, I think that’s just semantics.
Overall it’s a subgenre which doesn’t feel oversaturated, and I think a lot more could be done within it. Obviously things like Pinocchio and Toy Story have meant dolls and toys have always been a part of film and book subculture, but the horror side feels very untapped. Chucky is obviously iconic. Tiffany, Megan, and Annabelle have earned their place in more recent pop culture. But, there isn’t a ton of actual Killer Dolls out there.
I think we’ll see more. We’ve already seen both Chucky and Megan used to represent A.I, and that feels like a perfect match to me. From what I’ve seen of my niece’s dolls they’re becoming more life like than ever before so why wouldn’t they be used as a mirror to A.I within the realms of modern horror. It feels like a natural fit, one I expect to see exploited more.
Dolls: Image From IMDB
My Own Experience Writing Killer Dolls
The only story I’ve written on Killer Dolls was Not Our Problem. I originally wrote it as a short screenplay back when I worked in a charity shop. That’s right, the old woman in the story is me. Only, I’m a man. And not quite that old yet. And the porcelain dolls didn’t attack me, although I knew they wanted too.
After seeing that massive box of porcelain dolls being brought into the store the basis for the story instantly formed in my head. Together with remembering my friend’s mums living room when she collected those horrible things the whole story fell into place maybe quicker than any story I can remember. I think I wrote it when I got home that night, or maybe I even wrote a quick draft of the short screenplay during my lunch break.
Despite the way I’ve written about dolls over the last few weeks I don’t actually have an irrational fear of them (it’s perfectly rational) but I do think they’re super creepy and lend themselves to horror.
There used to be a kid clothes shop near a place I worked where they displayed the clothes on creepy dolls in the window. I often had visions of one being missing when I walked past it late at night. When the place finally closed down the whole town was on full alert as to the whereabouts of the creepy dolls. Tell me Killer Dolls doesn’t work for horror!
With my short story I tried to position it someplace in-between the comedy side, and the Slasher side of the subgenre, but I do think Killer Dolls work better with a little humour in there. That’s one of the things I changed from the original Screenplay when I wrote the Short Story. In the original there was none of the stuff after the dolls attack. There was a similar ending, but it lacked the humour of this one. I prefer this more recent incarnation.
It was fun to write because, like I mentioned, there isn’t a lot of Killer Doll stuff out there. A quick search of Netflix or Tubi or whatever would probably reveal loads of low budget titles, but not much mainstream. I think this lack of big Killer Doll movies and books does give more room to write whatever you want. I’m not sure if I’ll go back to the subgenre at any point, but it was nice to finally get Not Our Problem out there.
Stephen
