What The Hell Are Killer Dolls?
Child’s Play: Image From IMDB
Introduction To Killer Dolls
I have neither the patience nor the time to research the origins of dolls for this piece. To find out how they came to be, and why we saw fit to give these hideous things to kids. To lay them in cots next to our children like they weren’t going to disturb and haunt them for their whole lives. But, I can tell you how these dolls ended up in horror movies and books. The answer is universally known but it bares repeating, it’s because they’re fucking creepy!
The more life like we make the dolls, the more evil they possess. With each additional human feature we add to their uncanny valley nature and make them more terrifying. Those soulless human like eyes look back at us and we just know they’d kill us in our sleep if they could. Then we gave them voices, and was it game over.
Each unsettling chuckle or childish squeak sends a chill down the spine. Each blink of their lifelike eyes reinforces with absolute certainty that they are pure evil. We dress them like they’re one of us, but they’re not. If there’s one thing more evil than man, it’s dolls. They’ve been terrifying since their invention. They’ve always been destined for horror.
We create monster movies because the world is rapidly changing. We have creature features due to our fear of bugs and wild animals. The atomic age brought about monsters of enormous world ending powers. And, as more and more kids went missing and violence grew Slashers suddenly appear on our screen. Horror plays with our fears… and what’s there to fear more than a creepy disturbing unnatural psychotic doll. I want to hide under the bed just typing about them.
Child’s Play 2: Image From IMDB
Child’s Play Brings The Killer Dolls To Life
It took a while for the creepy dolls to fully enter the film business but it’s always felt like a perfect match. Early efforts played with the idea of how creepy they were, but it was Child’s Play that fully explored their more demonic Killer Dolls side. It brought that fear to life. The fear we’ve always known. If they were alive, they’d definitely be crazed killers. I mean, just look at them.
Personally, I’ve always found porcelain dolls to be the most scariest of all the dolls, but anything made to look or feel life-like gives me the chills, and The Good Guy Doll with those horrible eyes and strange hair qualifies as that. Why any parent would let their kid sleep with a doll like that next to them is beyond me. It’s nightmare inducing. My first thought when Chucky started to butcher Andy’s family was simply, what were they expecting to happen.
Since then the Killer Dolls have only multiplied. More Child’s Play movies. Multiple Puppet Masters. Annabelle. Megan. Robert (Makes them even creepier if you give them a regular name) It’s an enduring subgenre because the dolls have only gotten more life like. Now kids dolls can do everything. They’re practically babies you have to look after (I so want to go on a rant about this but I’ll refrain) So naturally the genre has only become more creepy. I can’t imagine there’s many parents out there who haven’t been jump scared by their kids terrifying doll laying some place it shouldn’t. And chances are… it made its own way there.
Megan (M3gan): Image From IMDB
Evolution Of Killer Dolls
Recent movies and books involving Killer Dolls have added a more comedic element to the subgenre, and I personally think that’s because they were just to damn terrifying to have solely as a horror device. Worse than clowns!
Bride of Chucky is my favourite Child’s Play movie because Chucky is delivering one liners and wise cracking in a way which makes him feel slightly more harmless. Him and Tiffany making jokes lessens their frightening nature (Which is normally a bad thing, but not in Killer Doll movies) The same as Megan dancing. Could you image a creepy A.I doll like that being in a pure serious horror movie, they’d have to clean the seats in the cinema afterwards.
Also, as a side-note, what could have happened if Small Soldiers had been released before Toy Story? If we’d made animated toys evil before we’d made them kind-hearted and good-natured. I feel like the whole of cinema could have been different if those two films came out in the opposite order. Small Soldiers was only a P.G, but still… that’s how horrible life like toys are.
But in all seriousness, Killer Dolls is a great subgenre that works. Dolls have all the attributes to be fantastic horror fodder. They’re small and life like. Something we give to our kids or have for comfort. They’re already inside our homes. Have a place in our hearts, before they try and carve it out of us. Killer Dolls represents that lost of childhood innocence better than any other horror subgenre. We literally see those childhood memories attacking us. If you can’t trust your toys, what can you trust?
