Continuing our monthlong celebration of Halloween with various scary movie and TV-related lists. Check out our online movie database at staytunedmag.com to see if any of these or other scary titles are on this month.
KEEP ’EM IN THE BOX:
TOP 5 SCARIEST MOVIE DOLLS & DUMMIES
No matter how nice a doll may look, there’s still just something about it that’s a little too creepy, too lifelike, almost as if it may, in fact, spring to life. As movies show us, sometimes these plastic creations do. And despite what their pre-programmed voices may tell us when we pull their strings, they don’t all just want to give us a hug:
5. “Fats” in Magic (1978)
I have never seen a ventriloquist’s dummy that doesn’t have that look about it like it’s up to something, and watching you, just wishing it could have the chance to move and show you who’s really boss. And Fats is the epitome of that in this spooky flick that plays on the old “dummy tries to control its master theme” (the master here played by Anthony Hopkins in his years before Hannibal Lecter made him a star). He even takes over this preview trailer, one of the eeriest ever made:
4. The mannequins in “The After Hours” episode of The Twilight Zone (1960)
This one kept my sister and me up after we caught it one late night when we were kids, and verified what we always suspected about store mannequins. Looking at these faces, we can be glad that some stores have gone with the featureless, more generic types. Or done away with them entirely, which would be my preference.
3. The clown in Poltergeist (1982)
Poor Robbie. First he has to suffer that spooky tree right outside his window, and now he faces his ultimate terror. Parents, there is just no excuse for owning a clown toy like this, ever:
2. Talky Tina in “Living Doll” episode of The Twilight Zone (1963)
“Who loves ya baby?” Not this doll, in this classic episode starring pre-Kojak Telly Savalas as a rather jerky dad who runs afoul of his stepdaughter’s new toy. Looks like somebody certainly left Tina’s switch set to “Evil”:
1. Zuni fetish doll in Trilogy of Terror (1975)
The frightening and intense story that rounds out one of the best-made scary TV movies stars Karen Black as a woman trapped in her apartment by an African hunting doll (supposedly inhabited by a merciless spirit known as “He Who Kills”) she has purchased, and which has suddenly sprung to life with malice on its mind.