Monstrum

(host) Maybe it's the unblinking eyes staring at you emotionless day and night.

Or perhaps it's their small size acting as a cloak of innocence, or their human-like appearance that makes them seem just slightly too real.

However you want to spin it, there's something creepy about dolls.

Why do we take these seemingly innocuous things and give them such life?

And why do we continue to imagine them as capable of evil and violence?

[upbeat music] I'm Dr. Emily Zarka, and this is "Monstrum."

As imaginary others, it's easy to ascribe meaning onto the artificial body.

In addition to ritual and religious use, dolls might have been the very first toys.

Archeological evidence shows us that the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Minoans, and Etruscans all produce dolls for spiritual purposes.

The oldest we have found so far dates to the third millennium.

While early dolls were sometimes used for sinister purposes much more frequently, they were used for protection.

In the third century BC the use of dolls in spiritual practice seems to take a negative turn, at least in literature.

In the second Idyll collection of the Greek poet Theocritus, part of the narrative details a witch using a wax doll and a nefarious love spell.

Roman poet Horace gives a similar malevolent cast in a 30 BCE text in a story of necromancy and erotic magic, where two female witches use a woolen doll and a smaller wax doll in a mock execution.

Stereotypes and demonizing rumors about religious and spiritual dolls like voodoo dolls, kachinas, corn dollies, and puppets have undoubtedly contributed to negative associations, particularly their false connections to demonic witchcraft and spirit manipulation.

Views of spiritual practices that use figurines or dolls as conduits or ceremonial figures negatively may have bled into cultural attitudes towards dolls designed for entertainment and the consumer market.

Human miniatures first served ritual religious and funerary purposes.

But beginning in medieval Europe, miniature fashion dolls were collected by wealthy adults.

Doll maker became a profession by the early 15th century, and doll houses emerged in Europe around the 16th century.

When the fashions they wore fell out of favor, the dolls might be passed on to children as play things.

This history contributes to an uncertainty and unease about dolls.

We aren't sure of their purpose, at least not entirely.

Dolls have always been in-between objects and that makes us uncomfortable.

There's something about a doll that can give off a creepy vibe, especially in recent times, but why?

The first ventriloquist dummy shows up around the 18th century.

I know technically it's not a doll but a puppet, according to enthusiasts, but they don't fall far from the uncanny valley family doll tree.

These dolls come alive with movement and a voice.

A ventriloquist's performance is in part dependent on the audience's willingness to suspend disbelief and see the doll as a sentient person, or at least detached from the human operating.

It often made to look like a child or child sized.

The ventriloquist dummy calls to mind a youth possessed.

Baby dolls and porcelain dolls became popular in the 19th century, followed closely by socketed joints, movable eyes, and talking dolls.

What was also developing around this time the modern concept of childhood.

Before the Enlightenment Movement of the 17th and 18th century, many people just didn't subscribe to the cultural concept of childhood.

It was only when philosophers presented the idea that human experience defined knowledge and reason, that people really began to consider cultivating an ideal childhood for personal development.

Children became seen as blank slates, which meant that what they played with mattered.

This is when dolls become part of children's developmental play, and it's when things really take a creepier turn.

So another reason for our fear of dolls is partially about the weariness of the child and of childhood itself.

Children, like dolls, seem innocent and naive, but we can't really know what they're thinking.

Dolls when seen as tiny humans emphasize this same point.

This attitude becomes apparent as literature starts to emerge blurring the boundary between child and doll, questioning what is a living thing and what is not.

Just look at "Pinocchio."

First published as a magazine serial in 1881 and 1882 and collected into a single novel in 1883, "The Adventures of Pinocchio" follows the story of a marionette doll crafted from a talking piece of wood that wept and laughed like a child, a terrifying little tidbit excluded from the Disney version of the story.

Oh, and Jiminy Cricket.

Yeah, in the original story Pinocchio kills the talking cricket with a hammer, and that's only the tip of the creepy iceberg and the unintentional horror story.

Before becoming a real boy, the doll experiences some pretty traumatic stuff, contributing to the story's questioning of both morality and humanity.

While Pinocchio the talking sentient marionette was firmly grounded in the pages of fiction, real-world dolls were becoming more human-like by the addition of voices.

The end of the 19th century gave us the first talking dolls from an unlikely source.

After inventing the phonograph in 1877, Thomas Edison invented a talking doll who got her voice from a tiny version of his earlier invention.

While Edison thought the doll would be a hit in the late 1880s, he was grossly mistaken.

Dolls bridge the boundary between child and adult.

Sometimes they have adult-like features on a child-sized body.

There's also the way kids play with them, caring for them like children of their own or crafting fictional adult lives to act out.

It blurs the child and the adult too much for us to be comfortable with, and we're right back to that uncanny valley.

Take the infamous Robert the Doll.

Gifted to Robert Eugene Otto by his grandfather around 1904, the doll became the boy's constant companion.

He talked to the doll and treated it like a real person.

He even gave the doll his name, Robert, and began calling himself Gene.

Human Gene blamed mischief and accidents on Robert, the doll.

Part of a wealthy and eccentric family in Key West, rumors about Gene and the doll flourished.

Robert stayed a part of Gene's life into his adulthood.

Children would report seeing the doll standing by himself in the window of Gene's house, seeming to move on its own.

After Gene's death, the new owner of the house and the doll reported hearing footsteps and giggling.

She also saw the facial expression change if anyone spoke poorly of Gene.

Many creators have used the story as inspiration for all kinds of terrifying stories, but none as famous as Chucky-- the killer doll that launched a franchise and gave pretty much everyone nightmares.

Hi, I'm Chucky.

Wanna play?

[screams] So living dolls are getting the public's interest in literature and eccentric real world tales in the early 20th century, and film wouldn't be far behind.

Dolls firmly entered the horror genre in 1945, the important British horror anthology "Dead of Night" ends with the creepy tale of the relationship between a ventriloquist and his dummy-- a relationship that questioned who was the master and who was the puppet, and who was the murderer.

A few decades later, the "Twilight Zone" a series that does excellent work turning the mundane terrifying, aired a standout episode that took a doll from merely creepy to evil.

In "Living Doll," Annabelle buys her daughter Christie a Talky Tina in an attempt to distract Christie from the harsh parenting of her new stepfather.

The thing is, Talky Tina isn't happy about Christie's mistreatment, and the doll begins to move on her own tormenting and threatening the stepfather before eventually killing him.

The episode's final words come from the doll herself.

In 1969, "Playboy" got into the doll game, but not probably in the way you're thinking.

Famous science fiction and horror writer Richard Matheson published a short story "Prey" in the April edition.

In the story, a woman named Amelia buys a Zuni fetish doll named He Who Kills as a birthday gift for her boyfriend.

Described as "seven inches long and carved from wood "with a skeletal body, oversized head, pointed teeth, "bulging eyes, and a tiny gold chain wrapped around its body, keeping the spirit inside from escaping."

When the doll falls from the edge of a table, the chain slips off.

The doll stalks and hunts Amelia with supernatural speed and ferocity, injuring and eventually possessing her.

And this horrific variation, the doll's malevolence is formed from a misunderstanding of Zuni practices.

The story took on new life when it was adapted for television as "Amelia" in the 1975 "Trilogy of Terror."

The doll's physical appearance is significant in this time.

It is muscular, shirtless, and black, a racist take on the tale as the doll stalks the white Amelia.

In the sequel, "He Who Kills" from the "Trilogy of Terror II," the same doll hunts a white Dr. Simpson and now has a cannibalistic need for flesh-- another damaging and false stereotype.

The 1970s marked a return to the creepy ventriloquist dummy.

In William Goldman's novel "Magic," a struggling magician buys a foulmouthed dummy that may or may not be alive.

A story of suspense, the reader is left wondering if the magician Corky is really a violent mentally ill man or if the dummy fats is behind the murders he commits.

Anthony Hopkins would star in the 1978 film adaptation that gives us yet another truly creepy doll for our nightmares.

It also marks a change from the demonic possession trope and into conversations about psychopathy and trauma-- topics under scrutiny as a handful of serial killers are discovered across the globe, including John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy.

And in 1982, "Poltergeist" just really puts the cherry on top of the child monster doll deal.

Robbie's murderous clown doll manages to combine two terrifying monsters-- the creepy doll and the killer clown-- into one epic jump scare.

It gets me every time I watch it-- literally every time.

[evil doll cackling] And I think one of the reasons it's so incredibly effective as a monster is because it strikes when Robbie should be sleeping-- snuggling safe in his room, his mother just down the hall, relaxing in the bath.

Dolls often reside in playrooms and bedrooms.

Spaces in the home meant to be safe havens for children.

But sometimes real human monsters violate that safety and the evil doll can be a metaphor for that offense.

The 1980s also brought one of the most iconic killer dolls in history-- Chucky.

"Child's Play" takes a serial killer and places his ghost in the body of a talking doll, literally bringing the killer into the home, disguised as an object of comfort.

In an additional element of horror, while the audience knows that the doll is the real killer within the world of the movie, the police are convinced that Chucky's owner, a child, is the murderer, presumably driven to commit violence because of the trauma of losing his father.

If you're a parent, it can often seem like children have a death wish, and it's not that far a mental leap to imagine the inverse of that murderous intention.

I'm looking at you, sleep deprivation.

Chucky launched a successful franchise that served up scares alongside social commentary.

Chucky's sequels are a satire on heteronormativity that challenge the very concept of life by disrupting and questioning conception itself.

In "Bride of Chucky," female doll Tiffany gives birth to a doll child.

"Seed of Chucky" continues the story of Tiffany's child, who has ambiguously gendered and sexed, and on a journey to find their doll parents.

When this goal is achieved, the child, alternatively called Glen and Glenda, brings their parents back to life with a ritual, essentially rebirthing their own parents.

Then the dolls capture actress Jennifer Tilly, playing herself, who is forcibly impregnated with Chucky Seed and gives birth to human twins who are then possessed by the spirit of the doll child, who I guess was born with two souls-- one male and one female.

But yeah, the movie was marketed at gay pride parades alongside special Chucky condoms.

The "Child's Play" remake brought attention back to the franchise in 2019, but it was really the "Chucky" television series that continued the franchise's queer history.

So this doll is made into to a monstrous other that challenges human relationships and norms.

Another part of the fear of dolls, I believe, comes from conceptualizing them as empty human vessels we can ascribe meaning to.

A child plays with the doll and makes up a whole history for their play thing.

But there's a fear that the doll will come alive with a vengeance, unhappy with the life it's been given.

The interesting array of creepy dolls from the 1990s highlights this anxiety.

A killer ventriloquist dummy in "Tales from The Crypt" is revealed to be the ventriloquist's murderous Siamese twin.

Slappy from 1993's "Goosebumps: Night of the Living Dummy," inspired in part by R. L. Stine's fear of the original Pinocchio story, is a sadistic dummy who fights another animated dummy, Mr. Wood.

The two girls who own the puppet spend much of the book trying to convince the adults around them that the dolls are alive and that Mr. Wood is trying to make them his slaves.

The idea that dolls could be alive took a much more PG turn in 1995 with "Toy Story."

Well, kind of.

The vengeful, mutilated, and tortured dolls of Sid swarm the boy in a scene that seems straight out of a horror movie, complete with exorcist spinning head reference and zombie-like toy soldiers.

(Sid) Ahh!

I know this movie is why I became hyper aware of how I was treating all my toys for fear that they would come alive at night and attack me.

The 21st century is certainly not lacking in scary doll stories.

The uncanny faces of dolls appear in massive horror franchises from "Saw" to "The Conjuring Universe," and most recently, "M3gan."

All of these stories explore family, faith, and the lingering effects of acts deemed sinful either spiritually, socially, or intellectually.

The dolls and all of them act as surprising containers for violent and deviant behavior.

The doll becomes a monster only because of a human's fear, the terror of childhood, the possibility of malevolent intent in a small body, the misguided intentions of burgeoning identity.

It is our discomfort with the uncannyness of their humanness that unnerves us, especially when there are artificial motivations to closely resemble our own dark urges.

Hey, friend.

The doll becomes an-- oh.

[crew speaking] Ah!

Aah!

Hey.

Ah!

[laughs]