Six years before Child’s Play, we met The Dummy.
Creepy dolls became a staple of horror cinema in the wake of Chucky’s debut on the scene, but back in the early 1980s, that fear hadn’t yet been exploited by the genre. One of the earliest killer doll flicks came in the form of student filmmaker Louis La Volpe’s 1982 short film The Dummy, which some of you ’80s kids probably have at least vague memories of.
The seven-minute short film, considered by some to be the inspiration for Child’s Play, centered on a woman trapped in her apartment with a creepy ventriloquist dummy who intended on killing her, and it was a staple of networks like HBO, Showtime, and USA throughout the ’80s. The short would often play during the commercial breaks of horror movies and also shows like “Night Flight,” “Saturday Nightmares,” and “Up All Night,” scarring the childhoods of young horror lovers who had no idea what they were in store for.
Said one YouTube commenter:
Holy shit. I can’t believe I came across this. I remember seeing this on USA, when it was still channel 14. I was really little & it creeped me out, bad. Parts of it stuck in my memory, kind of like that episode of The Twilight Zone, with the thing on the wing of the plane. Same creepiness.
Turn off the lights and enjoy this retro Halloween treat!
