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So, dolls. Fun play things or weapons of mass destruction?
While researching for this blog, dolls have typically been seen as the latter, a scary being possessed by an evil spirit, or a hollow body with a human being trying to escape, and killing anything it needs to in order to be freed. But when we compare this to the animated doll film of ‘Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses’, it begs the question of the dichotomy of the doll movie. What makes a doll have a passion for killing and another a passion for fashion?
You Look Like a Dummy
One of the earliest doll movies was ‘The Doll’ in 1919, which is about a woman impersonating a doll and marrying a man. This introduces the harrowing journey of the uncanny valley.
Uncanny Valley – a psychological concept where humans feel unease, eeriness, or revulsion towards human-like objects (robots, toys, CGI), creating a dip (the “valley”) in our positive emotional response as realism increases.
Because dolls have human likeness, we relate to them, up to a point, but then there can be a crazy dip where the uncanniness becomes unsettling. It starts as “oh this doll is cute” to “they have no soul so they’re gonna take mine” quite quickly, and fulfilling the human look but being empty inside adds to the fear. It’s the separation between calling them ‘it’ while recognising our own features in them. And when we name them and give them ‘he’ or ‘she’ pronouns, they become more like us. This conflict equates to a doll blindspot that film and TV have frequently explored, for instance in the aptly named ‘The Boy’ (2016) in which a doll acts as the son of a human family. There were a TON of ventriloquist dummies with issues but I’ll save that deep dive for part 2 of this series. For now, I’ll mention that one of the most popular uses of dolls in 20th century media was placing them in unstable domestic spaces where childhood comfort changes into violence. This was the case for ‘Child’s Play’ (1988), ‘Poltergeist’ (1982) and ‘Dolly Dearest’ (1991). These movies were brutal – wielding weapons, spouting threats and craving blood. Doll horror often works because toys are meant to be controlled, so it’s terrifying when the roles get reversed. People will then watch the film and buy Chucky for their OWN HOME? Why bring peril to your door?
The Doll, The Myth, The Movie Legend
In the 2000s, horror dolls just keep coming, and even update themselves, with improved aesthetics, and dolls like M3gan using AI as her weapon instead of a bat, which plays more into our fears of technology taking over. Doll horror is also deeply international, with Japanese cinema especially embracing haunted objects and often leaning on folklore, spirituality and legend to build rooted narratives. It’s clear that the classic “neglected child and companion doll that’s unfathomably bloodthirsty” trope lives on, and iconic figures like Annabelle keep getting screen time in ‘The Conjuring’ series. Toys like Annabelle are standing the test of time not just because of the movies, but the mythology that comes with them. Annabelle is a real life raggedy doll from the 1970s that’s allegedly haunted. She has enthralled paranormal buffs around the world and fuels intrigue across many sequels.
Obviously, with this, there’s been a rise in pediophobia (fear of dolls). Films have embraced the small killers so much so that it’s been hard for people to separate fiction from reality. Also, we make it harder when we take doll phenomena beyond the screen. In a Florida museum lies a 1904 life-sized doll called Robert that once belonged to a young boy who had a very strong relationship with it. Several horror movies were made about Robert as a result. If I grew up seeing this, of course, any humanoid object would be decapitated, burned and binned. But Robert being a life-sized doll makes it even worse – like, obviously you could kill me. But as stated in the intro, as generations inherit dolls as cursed objects, we also have Tyra Banks playing one in the eponymous named movie, talking about achieving your dreams and being a star. And this is where the doll dichotomy enters the fray.
What kind of dream is the house made from?
As we see with media like ‘Toy Story’, ‘Bratz: The Movie’ and ‘Barbie’, not all dolls are terrifying. They have stories and are given their own souls and lean into their known marketing and live the lives the audience would expect them to have. In fact, those dolls, to make them warmer, go beyond being small figurines and are animated or put in live action. We are transported into their world rather than them trying to ‘infiltrate’ ours, which is what made them creepy. With an IP firstly rooted in children’s entertainment as well, they became more family friendly. Centring a plot around a small inanimate doll in a human space, I assume the doll will massacre all that surrounds it, but placing dolls with their friends softens the possibility of a porcelain rampage. These doll movies allow us to experiment beyond human range commenting on nostalgia, gender norms and aesthetics. This is what happened with the now banned ‘Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story’ (1987), which depicted the tragedy of a real life singer. The bootleg Barbies were a way to depict the story that was laden with control, gender pressures and pretending, which reflected the restrictive view in which the world saw those dolls.
It wasn’t until ’Barbie’ (2023), one of the highest grossing films of all time, that the doll norms were truly subverted into being something way more than a source or victim of control. It was also great because it’s atypical for a doll film to be for all ages, with animated doll media usually catering to children. They even dabble in a bit of horror with the ‘Monster High’ TV show, making fashion figures look edgy and dark, but despite the efforts, they don’t scratch the itch of a terrifying IT girl. I think dolls are marketed as either friend or foe. I don’t think Chucky can be rebranded as Barbie’s boyfriend who loves the beach.
Now, with the success of ‘Barbie’, I’m curious to see other doll content, but it seems like the 2 lanes are well established. If you have any dolls, I think it’s best to throw them away regardless. It’s probably not haunted but I wouldn’t take any chances.
