Editorials
10 of the Most Unsettling Moments in Doll Horror History!
There is a very specific reason why I asked my mother to return the many porcelain dolls she bought for me when I was a kid: I watched too many horror movies. Porcelain dolls, baby dolls, life-size dolls, and especially ventriloquist dummies: I had seen far too many of those damn things open their eyes, come to life, and kill people in movies, and I wanted no parts of it.
Of course, when you become an adult, it feels silly to be terrified of lifeless, plastic objects that barely come up to your knee— especially after witnessing a fair share of ridiculous doll horror movies that make us laugh more than scare us. (Pinocchio’s Revenge, anyone?) However, when done effectively and with the right amount of terror, doll horror can contain some of the most disturbing moments in the genre: anything from dolls cutting out their victims’ tongues, to attacking children, to even screaming in anguish as they die themselves.
And with the releases of this weekend’s Child’s Play remake (which is also going toe-to-toe against Toy Story 4), next week’s Annabelle Returns, and next month’s Brahms: The Boy II, summer 2019 is shaping up to be an interesting battle of the (vindictive) dolls in the horror genre. In anticipation, let’s take a look back at 10 of the most unsettling moments in doll horror history.
The opening sequence of Dead Silence (2007)
Filmmakers James Wan and Leigh Whannell were riding off the massive success of Saw when their follow-up Dead Silence came to theaters. Sadly, the movie failed to be a critical or box office success, but its scares, visuals, set design, score, cinematography (and those dolls!) have now made it a cult favorite in the doll horror subgenre that it deserved to be. And don’t even try to pretend like Billy the dummy didn’t haunt your life in 2007.
While the movie indeed has its flaws, Dead Silence’s opening sequence is near perfect. After the Ashens receive a mysterious and creepy ventriloquist doll named Billy at their door, Mrs. Ashen (Amber Valletta) stays at home as her husband leaves and thinks it’d be hilarious if she hides it under the covers to scare him when he returns. Unfortunately for her, Billy has other plans. The music starts to slow down; the clock slowly ticks; the teakettle screeches. Mrs. Ashen begins to hear faint whispers coming from the bedroom where the doll sits. As she lifts the covers up to check on it, the sounds of scraping knives and shrieks cause her to get thrown across the room, crawling for her life. Blood pours from her mouth, and she gets yanked again. Her husband Jamie (Ryan Kwanten) soon comes home to a bloody mess and hears the mimicking of his wife’s voice, before discovering his dead wife propped up on the bed with her mouth gaped open and sans tongue, as Billy watches on from the bedroom floor.
The mechanical doll enters the room – Deep Red (1975)
Sure, you could argue that there is little logical rhyme or reason for Dario Argento’s choice to include creepy prop dolls in several of his kill scenes in his 1975 giallo masterpiece Deep Red, but they really do add something special. Particularly, when Professor Giordani (Glauco Mauri) returns to his office after endless nights of investigating who could be behind this slew of murders, he feels as if someone or something is watching him; he senses a threat. Instead of taking a peek around the office to see who is lurking, he grabs the nearest weapon and waits it out. And soon enough, he gets a real surprise when a laughing, smirking, mechanical doll comes barreling into the room— quickly floating in the air as it makes its way towards Giordani, flailing its arms and rotating its head towards him, as he is understandably horrified and confused. Giordani cracks the doll’s head open and starts to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all…but just as he starts to let his guard down, the gloved killer comes from behind the window curtain and savagely murders him. The doll was used as a mere trick to distract the professor, and he paid the ultimate price because of it.
Hugo the dummy stands up – Dead of Night (1945)
In this classic horror anthology’s most memorable story, party guest Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) is haunted by the tale of an anxious ventriloquist who is convinced that his amoral dummy Hugo is alive. Hugo— with his crisp white bow tie, his unnerving high-pitched voice and deadpan, dark humor— set the bar for terrifying dummies in horror. So when Walter finds himself inside of a confined jail cell with the nightmarish Hugo staring at him from across the room, we are treated to some hair-raising visuals. Hugo’s eyes widen, before he slowly gets up from his chair and starts to walk over to Walter’s bed. There is just something so creepy about a doll that gets up and walks like a person would. He never loses eye contact with Walter, as he starts to climb onto Walter’s bed and begins to put his hands around his neck. “Wouldn’t I?” Hugo taunts, as he chokes Walter more forcefully, and the camera zooms out of the room. And, as this is far from the only disconcerting Hugo scene in this film, I had a difficult time choosing which one to include here— so do yourself a favor and seek Dead of Night out immediately!
May makes her own doll – May (2002)
(Contains Spoilers) A dissociated loner whose only friend is a glass-encased doll from her childhood, May (Angela Bettis) can’t seem to find what she’s looking for in a friend or soulmate— and, as her mother always told her, when you can’t find a friend, you make one. Too bad she likely did not mean that to translate literally. In this 2002 cult favorite, May’s super freaky-looking doll named Suzie is not even the most unsettling doll in the movie. Instead, what takes the cake is the climactic reveal of May’s homemade doll: she has taken the best parts from each of her dead former friends and lovers: hands, legs, neck…not to mention gauges out her very own eyeball to complete this mesh of human parts plus doll parts creation she has named “Amy.” We may have seen this coming from a mile away, but nothing can prepare us for the visual nightmare of this Frankenstein’s Monster-like creation that May eventually lies next to, touches, and talks to, as if it can understand her. Equal parts upsetting and tragic, May still hasn’t found what she is looking for, as sadly, the film ends with May even lonelier than she ever was.
Zuni doll attacks Amelia – Trilogy of Terror (1975)
In what many regarded as the scariest 25 minutes of a TV movie ever during the time, this final story within Dan Curtis’s anthology Trilogy of Terror pinned Karen Black’s Amelia against a Zuni hunting fetish doll whose fallen gold chain unleashes a cruel spirit which is out for blood. As Amelia settles in for the evening after feeling guilty for ditching plans with her mother, she gets distracted and loses sight of her newly bought Zuni doll. The lights flicker off, and she stumbles in the darkness, only to begin to feel her legs getting hacked and slashed. The imagery of the Zuni is unsettling enough, but the doll’s scratchy growls, baby-like screams, illogical jibberish, and swiftness as it chases Amelia throughout the rooms make it horrifying. We watch with anxiety as the doll jabs the knife from under the door until it busts through the bathroom and screams for its life as Amelia attempts to drown it. Of course, whatever attempts Amelia makes to stop the Zuni, the Zuni is always one step ahead, and even after she viciously stabs it, the unleashed spirit would go on to enter Amelia herself. This sequence contains some solid jump scares as well as Curtis’s brilliant, kinetic camerawork from the doll’s POV that would influence Child’s Play a decade later.
Fats busts out the switchblade – Magic (1978)
In this slow-burn psychological horror, troubled ventriloquist Corky (Anthony Hopkins) begins to experience some fame with his new act that includes his vulgar dummy, Fats. After suffering from some apprehension over his newfound success, Corky returns home to the Catskills where he grew up, and reunites with his former crush Peggy-Ann (Ann-Margret) and her now-husband, Duke (Ed Lauter) which becomes the start of an affair between Corky and Peggy-Ann. As Duke grows more suspicious of the affair and especially of Corky’s odd behavior, he decides to confront Corky, so he makes his way into Corky’s cabin to dig around for evidence or anything he can find. Unbeknownst to Duke, Fats is watching him root through Corky’s things and decides to teach him a fatal lesson. We see a blurred shot of Fats watching Duke through the mirror behind him, slowly moving his head around and preparing to make his move. As Duke feels Fats’s stare, he makes a huge mistake by walking towards the dummy, right before Fats busts out a switchblade and stabs him. The most unnerving aspect of this scene is watching Fats’s grin spread across his face, deriving pleasure from every bloody stab into poor Duke.
Clown doll chokes Robbie – Poltergeist (1982)
Not only did Poltergeist traumatize us with a sinister doll— it decided to ruin our lives with a clown-doll hybrid that is considered one of the scariest aspects of this 1982 beloved film. As young Robbie gets ready for bed, he decides to throw a blanket over the creepy, smiling doll that sheepishly sits in the rocking chair, so it isn’t staring directly at him during his slumber. (And who could blame him.) The doll seems to telepathically reject the blanket, and Robbie decides to give up and attempts to go to sleep, but to no avail. The child senses that something is amiss, and looks over to see the doll missing from the chair, to which he begins to panic. He peeks under his bed; the doll isn’t there. And suddenly, in one of the most iconic jump scares in horror, the clown doll is standing right behind Robbie, wrapping its never-ending arms around him, wanting to choke him out. It starts to drag Robbie under the bed, while the other family members suffer from various other supernatural forces throughout the house. Luckily, Robbie bravely fights back, and the doll doesn’t get away with its shenanigans.
Talky Tina speaks for the first time –The Twilight Zone, ep. “Living Doll” (1963)
Creeping out generations of The Twilight Zone viewers for years to come, this quintessential episode of the Rod Serling-hosted show reached all encompassing levels of unsettling when it introduced the world to this sentinel, wind-up doll. After a hurt Christie (Tracy Stratford) leaves her new doll on the couch with her cruel stepfather (after he just berated her and her mother) Erich (Telly Savalas) decides to check out the doll’s abilities for himself, winding her up to see what she says. Talky Tina wastes no time in expressing her hatred for Erich, as she stops moving her arms and looks at him dead in the eyes and says, “My name is Talky Tina, and I don’t think I like you…I think I could even hate you. You’ll be sorry.” And with her judgmental eyes and her knowing smirk, Talky Tina just looked like she despised him, especially after he throws her across the room and her eyes catch up to his. From this moment on, we knew Talky Tina was a real threat, and the rest of the episode proved this to be true. But nothing can beat that pivotal first moment when Talky Tina showed us her true colors…
Annabelle glares at Judy – The Conjuring (2013)
The Conjuring is first and foremost a well-crafted haunted house story with an innocent family trapped within its throws— however, the movie’s porcelain doll named Annabelle, which was based off of the Warrens’ actual “haunted” ragdoll of the same name, really stole the show. When the Warrens’ daughter Judy (Sterling Jerins) gets woken up from a tug on her sheets in the middle of the night, she does what every kid would do and wanders into her parents’ room full of possessed objects, of course. Searching for her parents, she runs into a different room in the house, where she locks herself inside. After thunderous banging on the door, Judy turns around to see a ghastly sight: the ghost of witch Bathsheba holding an uncaged Annabelle on her lap in the rocking chair. Annabelle slowly begins to twist her head around and stares threateningly at Judy, to which Judy is mortified. As Judy cries for help, the rocking chair gets thrown over her head, just in time for the Warrens to come in and rescue her. Even as Annabelle became the star of her own movies since then, we still haven’t shaken off this scene.
Chucky’s first kill – Child’s Play (1988)
In 1988, we were not prepared for the world’s deadliest, most foul-mouthed, voodoo-loving Good Guy doll. After little Andy (Alex Vincent) is gifted Chucky on his birthday, he quickly makes note that the doll is communicating to him, to which his dear Aunt Maggie (Dinah Manoff) brushes off. But after tucking Andy (and Chucky) into bed, Maggie starts to hear strange noises lurking around the apartment: tiny footsteps and pitter-patter that she assumes is Andy avoiding his bedtime. When she makes her way into the kitchen, Maggie gets temporarily distracted by a phone call from Andy’s mother and a mess all over the floor— to which the film cuts to someone picking up a hammer. Before she can even calm herself down from the “alone-at-night willies” Maggie turns around and catches a flying hammer to the eye and falls out the window to her harrowing demise. What a way to kick off a killing spree as a 3-ft doll. And the fact that we know right off the bat that it was Chucky but never even get a glimpse of him is genius— instead, Tom Holland opts for chilling POV shots from Chucky’s perspective and tiny footprints in the mess in the kitchen that give us the right amount of suspense for what’s yet to come. Plus, who isn’t disturbed to see Marty from Grease die so brutally!
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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