5 Devilish Overlooked Killer Doll Movies
Move over, Chucky. Step aside, M3gan. Make room, Annabelle. Back up, Blade and the rest of you fiendish Puppetmaster puppets! Here are five overlooked killer doll movies!
Why are so many people terrified of dolls? The official terms for this fear is pediophobia. Most dolls are made for kids. Theoretically, they should be anything but scary. Of course, the same could be said for circus clown. They’re supposed to provide laughter and cheer, not terror.
There is an enormous horror subgenre devoted to evil clowns. I wrote about underrated killer clown movies back in January. The same is true of dolls, puppets, and ventriloquist dummies. Motion picture depictions of killer dolls trace back to the Twilight Zone episodes “The Dummy” (1962) and “Living Doll” (1963).
A horde of killer doll movies invaded movie theaters and video rental stories in the ’80s and early ’90s. Child’s Play and Puppetmaster became long-running series. Annabelle and M3gan later joined them as franchises.
These aren’t the only scary doll movies worth watching. Check out the five below!
Dead Silence (2007)
A mysterious ventriloquist dummy is delivered to the home of Jamie (Ryan Kwanten) and Lisa Ashen (Laura Regan). Jamie leaves to run an errand and returns to discover that his wife has been grotesquely murdered.
The police believe that he did it. After all, no one else was in the house at the time. Well, except for that damn dummy! Jamie begins an investigation that leads him to an eerie occult conspiracy.
Dead Silence is written and directed by horror heavyweights James Wan and Leigh Whannell. It’s neither man’s best work, but it is a creepy and fun tale that takes advantage of an underused horror trope – the evil ventriloquist dummy. Ventriloquism is inherently creepy, and it’s surprising there aren’t more horror movies that feature it.
This movie received a hurricane of criticism when it was released, but has deservedly developed a cult following as one of the best killer doll movies of its era. It ends with an outrageous twist you won’t see coming.
Demonic Toys (1992)
Demonic Toys is produced by Full Moon Features, the producers of the Puppetmaster series. It’s a brainless but entertainingly bonkers movie about a pregnant cop who gets trapped in a building with a criminal she’s pursuing and a few other bumbling characters.
The group is terrorized by a group of toys that are possessed by a demon who takes the form of a little boy. He is also trapped inside the building, and has hatched a sinister plot to escape.
The human characters are mostly boring, but the toys are lots of fun. The star here is Baby Oopsie-Daisy, a trash talking, hilariously vulgar psycho who was popular enough to appear in several more Full Moon movies (none of which I’ve seen).
Demonic Toys also features an evil jack-in-the-box, a demented teddy bear with razor sharp teeth, and a tiny robot armed with deadly ray guns. The creative toys make this worth watching.
Dolls (1987)
Dolls, which is directed by Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator), is about a family and a few other bedraggled souls who find refuge inside a mysterious rural England mansion during a storm. The eccentric owners, who seem accommodating to their unexpected guests, have an extensive collection of eerie dolls.
The family’s young daughter is enamored with the toys at first, even though they look creepy. In fact, they seem to be watching the newcomers. But that isn’t possible…is it? Dolls features gloriously gooey ’80s special effects. These dolls are vicious and pull no punches.
Dolls features some of the whimsy of Re-Animator, but it is altogether a different beast from Gordon’s most famous horror work. The tone is darker and the pace is slower.
Despite having a great poster, Dolls received little attention. A year later, Child’s Play became a box office hit. Why did Dolls fail to take off? None of the toys stand out. You need at least one memorable antagonist if you want to launch a franchise.
Robert (2015)
A fired elderly housekeeper grants the son of her former employer a parting gift: a mysterious doll named Robert. Based on an actual cursed doll that now resides in Key West, Florida, Robert begins a demented campaign of terror that upends the family’s lives.
Many of Robert‘s plot elements seem influenced by the original Child’s Play. Robert creeps around the house playing cruel pranks that are blamed on the kid. He also takes violent exception to the young, attractive new housekeeper who has replaced his former owner.
If I was ranking the movies in this list, I’d put Robert at the bottom. Its acting and writing are subpar. But it’s mindless fun for anyone looking for Chucky-like scary doll movies. Although it’s not well known, this low budget flick was popular enough to spawn multiple sequels.
Trilogy of Terror (1975)
Trilogy of Terror is a three-part anthology television film. The third and last segment, “Amelia”, is about a woman named, you guessed it, Amelia (Karen Black) who purchases a wooden Zuni Doll designed to resemble a caricature of an indigenous warrior. She plans to give it to her anthropologist boyfriend as a present, but the doll has other ideas.
This is one of the earliest horror doll movies. The Zuni doll is still among the most unique and offbeat killer dolls in film history. Its warrior cries are both funny and creepy. This dude is really hard to kill, and he just keeps coming back, no matter how hard Amelia tries to get rid of him.
“Amelia” is based on the Richard Matheson short story “Prey” (1969). It eventually spawned a sequel, Trilogy of Terror II (1996), which features the Zuni Doll returning to wreak more havoc.
