Follow TV Tropes

Following

Murderous Mannequin

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/autons_image_5832.jpg
An Arm Cannon: the perfect weapon when you can't move your fingers independently.
"Like every right-thinking person in America, I am wary of mannequins. What are they? Are they alive or dead? No one knows! But what we do know is that they are extremely susceptible to being inhabited by spirits. We all saw the movie Mannequin. I mean, that idea doesn't come from nowhere!"
Wayne in "Dead Mall", Bless the Harts

A sister trope to Demonic Dummy, the Murderous Mannequin is a clothing mannequin brought to life and sent to kill. Like Mecha-Mooks, a hero can be shown cutting down swathes of these without moral qualm as they are 'not truly alive.'

Also make for excellent Paranoia Fuel — they're everywhere, and they're staring at you.

Like the Creepy Doll, Demonic Dummy, and Perverse Puppet, part of the eeriness is down to the Uncanny Valley.

Not all living mannequins are murderous. Some are fashionable and kind. They are commonly portrayed as manifestations of consumerism, which can be either good or bad.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 
    Anime & Manga 
  • Anastasia Aldarismen of Boundary Labyrinth and the Foreign Magician uses animated faceless mannequins as servants in Chapters 28 & 29. They're properly dressed as valets and maids, but they rip out of their clothes when she sends them into battle. Theodore destroys them with little effort.
  • Adal is the main villain of Episode 19 of Devilman. He's a demonic spider who takes possession of mannequins as if they were marionettes. Adal's mannequins can (drastically) shapeshift into a human's appearance, although their shadows don't change along, and have an identity separate from the demon. For years, Adal's been replacing people in key positions with his mannequins, but they all burn up when Devilman kills him.
  • The movie entry of Doki Doki! PreCure casts a trio of discarded objects as the villain's main forces. They are given life through the sound of the magical clarinet. The one female member of the group is Mannequin Carmine, a mannequin dressed in red and with a star drawn over her left eye. She's physically very strong and has a bigger form with ribbons adding extra volume to her lower limbs.
  • In Fairy Tail during the Fighting Festival arc, Bickslow move his "babies" inside some mannequins. While they don't become "alive", they can still float around, move and shoot laser beams at Gray.
  • Flame of Recca, though it was a surprise. The heroes came upon a beautiful woman and her small doll, who were able to use strings to restrain and kill their enemies. One of them realized that the woman never bled, and so figured out instead of the woman making the doll talk, the doll was actually a little girl, using one of the magical artifacts to give the mannequin life. Cue tragic backstory.
  • Episode 16 of Ghost Stories deals with a haunted apartment complex. These days, the building is abandoned but for whatever the main spirit residing there throws at trespassers. One of the things the spirit can do is summon an army of rundown mannequins to go after its targets. Keiichirou and Hajime are captured by these mannequins and brought to the roof of the apartment complex.
  • In Chapter 38 and Episode 33 of Ghost Sweeper Mikami, a youkai takes a mannequin it's body when for aesthetic reasons it's placed on a pentagram that under a certain angle of light completely throws off the feng shui of the store. The mannequin goes on the run, donning various disguises and turning whoever it can into non-living mannequins. (In the anime, it specifically targets the ghost sweepers.) Mikami manages to destroy it with Okinu's help.
  • Episode 9 of Gosick opens with Avril telling Kujo a horror story about a mannequin that invites people that stop by store window into the store after closing hours. She, or a spirit possessing the mannequin, then consumes the victim in the dressing room.
  • In the Junji Ito Kyoufu Manga Collection story "Headless Statues", an artist makes headless mannequins because he wants people to appreciate the body language, not the face. Then his creations come to life, kill whoever they can, and place the victims' heads on their necks.
  • In Ibitsu's side story The Corridor of Dolls, there is a hall in an abandoned building filled with discarded mannequins. It's said that if a couple crosses the hall and enacts a small ritual, their love will become eternal. It really does... because the mannequins kill them and wear their skins, remaining ageless and "preserving" them.
  • In Episode 3 of ID: Invaded, the sniper in the Pyrotechnician's ID well is a faceless mannequin with a rifle. It's a figurative nobody, because it doesn't need to be anybody as long as it causes the destruction the Pyrotechnician craves.
  • In Hideshi Hino's "The Mannequin Room", the son of a mannequin maker enters his father's workshop and by accident knocks over a little girl mannequin. That night, she attacks him while he sleeps and he smashes her head in in self-defense. The next night, he's attacked by the other mannequins in the hallway. His baseball bat saves him once more there. The third night, he's attacks while he sleeps by all the broken mannequin parts and again he fights back. There is the question of how the mannequins got in his room or in the hallway, but it's left up in the air whether the mannequins truly attacked or the boy just imagined them doing so.
  • Not Lives: The Queen of Puppet's forces comprise mainly of mannequins that kill anyone who uses a skill.
  • In "Makoto - Sailor Jupiter" of Sailor Moon Crystal, Nephrite remote-possesses a bride mannequin to lure men and steal their life energy. He also uses it to fight the Sailor Scouts until it's destroyed by Jupiter's Flower Hurricane attack. For comparison, in the manga Nephrite uses a shadow doppelganger instead of a mannequin in this scheme.
  • In So I'm a Spider, So What?, Ariel's first generation of Puppet Taratects resembled mannequins with additional arms and eyes. They are also the second strongest variant of Taratects, employing swords and bladed arms to tear apart any enemies.
  • Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories: Two instances of living mannequins occur.
    • In "The Next Floor", a mannequin serves as the elevator girl of a hellevator in a department store. She drops the victim-of-the-day off at a floor where he's "left alone" forever, as per his wish.
    • In "— Drawings —", a boy with the power to draw monsters into existence sics a handful of mannequins on the watchman. It's implied they murder him.

    Audio Plays 

    Comic Books 
  • In Adventure Comics #434, The Spectre battles a mannequin maker whose mannequins come to life and commit murder.
  • Batman: The villain Manikin is a deformed supermodel wearing a suit of Powered Armor that makes her look like a chrome mannequin.
  • "They Walk by Night" (Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #10): The mannequins at Lacey's Department Store come to life at night as vampires. Anyone who is still inside the store becomes their meal and joins their ranks, be that a locked-in customer or a vagrant looking for a roof for the night. Some time ago, a smalltime thief named Pete would've been their meal were it not for the fact that he struck a deal to provide them with a steady supply of victims if they'd let him go. Having some morals, Pete makes it a point to acquaint with rotten people only so that at least the victims deserve their fate. He's come to believe he's sort of doing society a favor.
  • "Clearance Sale" (Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #10): Two mannequins in a beach scene in the store window are in love and happily posed next to each other. The one disagreement they have with their position is that the male one has to hold up high a sign that reads "Clearance Sale" when he'd rather wrap his arm around his companion. And so they get into a fight with the store clerk, who continues to put them in the "Clearance Sale" position while they keep going back to the position they want. Things escalate when the store clerk threatens them with the incinerator, so they kill him.
  • Ice Cream Man #11: Victim du jour Will Parson gets banished to a Reality TV dimension by Rick to compete in a dating show populated exclusively by mannequins. He loses the first round of Mannequin House when Stiffanie doesn't give him a rose on account of him having facial detail. Will is taken away for "improvement", which entails the removal of his face, but he escapes. In order, he ends up on the sets of Family Autopsy, which has mannequins in the audience, Chop'd, where one other contestant is a mannequin, America's Got Intestines, uniquely without mannequins, and Wealthy Family of Zombies. The zombies' cook is a mannequin and he feeds Will to them for brunch.
  • "When Darkness Falls!!" (Journey into Mystery #69): A man is the only that notices the subtle movements of the wax mannequins of a men's clothing department. He chooses to remain after hours to investigate. As soon as he's alone, the mannequins move in to attack him, but he reveals himself to be one of them and berates them for their carelessness that could endanger their species.
  • Spider-Woman: Nathan Dolly transfers his essence into two mannequins and used them to commit several crimes.
  • "Mannequin of Murder" (Witches Tales #17): A guy invents a serum to freeze people into mannequins. This is intended as a form of And I Must Scream torture, but they eventually come back to zombie-esque life and kill their creator. Then they go back to posing, get shipped all over America, and start going on killing sprees after dark.
  • "Showcase for Horror!" (This Magazine is Haunted #6): Window display man Tod Tilstrom receives a grotesque and corpulent manikin he sets up and abuses for the customers' entertainment. It gets weird when the manikin starts showing up all over the department store without any admitting to moving it and both tears and blood can be discerned on it, though everyone by Tod believes in rational explanations. One evening past closing, he has to exit through the warehouse full of broken and abandoned manikins. They come after him, furious over his treatment of the qrotesque manikin, who himself awaits Tod at the exit. He swaps places with him, becoming human while Tod is forced into the existence of a manikin.

    Fan Fiction 

    Films — Live Action 
  • Asylum: In "The Weird Tailor", a magical suit designed to restore the dead to life is placed on a shop mannequin. The mannequin comes to life and attempts to strangle Bruno.
  • The Curse of Sleeping Beauty: Thomas and Linda open a book with seals they find in the hidden room and are attacked by the mannequins in the house. Later Billings returns to the property and is killed by the mannequins.
  • A wooden mannequin named Morty is the main monster of The Fear series. It may or may not be the same mannequin each movie.
    • The Fear is about a group of patients with psychological problems that get hunted down by a therapy manikin.
    • The Fear Resurrection is about a group of friends with psychological problems that get hunted down by an heirloom manikin.
  • In Ghostbusters (2016), one ghost possesses a mannequin, which goes after the Ghostbusters. It's even lampshaded by Patty — the second she enters a room full of mannequins, she goes "Nope!" and hightails it out of there.
  • In The Hazing, Professor Kapps animates the mannequin that was one of the Scavenger Hunt items. It pulls Justine into an embrace and forcibly kisses her, before transforming her into a mannequin.
  • A horror short from 1980 called Living Dolls.
  • Frank hallucinates being ripped apart by his own mannequins (on which he placed the scalps of his victims) in both versions of Maniac! (1980).
  • In the 1984 film Noroi no Mannequin Ningyō, four men have conspired to murder an elderly couple who refused to sell their small clothing store. The four took over the store through the couple's remaining debt, demolished it, and built a new store called Mon Cheri in its place. The couple's daughter, Natsuko, found out about the scheme and she too was murdered. Her vengeful spirit came to inhabit a wax mannequin that had been made in her likeness and had cruelly been put on display in Mon Cheri. The haunted mannequin proceeds to murder each of the four men as well as the mistress of one of them.
  • In Puppet Master II, André Toulon wants to use the same soul transfer method he's used for his puppets to put his soul and that of Carolyn Bramwell into two mannequins. The mannequins have the likeness of him and his lost wife Elsa in their younger years. After transferring his own soul, Toulon's puppets realize he's tricked them and murder him. Carolyn gets away and in need of a new master, the puppets turn to the corpse Camille Kenney to put her soul in the female mannequin. Thus, Miss Camille is born as the new Puppet Master. This plot point gets ignored in the sequel films, but is continued on in the comics. There, Miss Camille ceases to be when Camille's soul is put in a puppet as the evil counterpart to Dr. Jenn's soul.
  • Mannequins feature heavily in the 80's slasher Tourist Trap.
  • The life-sized Action Man that kills Mrs. Goodman in Xtro.

    Gamebooks 
  • Shop Till You Drop... Dead! have you accepting your friend Reggie's challenge to spend a night in his father's department store, which is reputed to be haunted. Turns out the stories are true - the mannequins will come to life and stalk you, for starters. And one of the bad endings have you becoming one of them.

    Literature 
  • Diogenes Club:
    • Caricatured mannequins of the Nazi high command are part of the Axis forces animated by the evil forces in "The End of the Pier Show".
    • In "Sorcerer Conjurer Wizard Witch", the waxworks in Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors are magically animated and sent out to plague London.
  • The Rubbermaid from Fool on the Hill is a mannequin in dominatrix gear holding a bowl of condoms that the fraternity Tolkien House had custom-made for them as a poor joke. Said joke is that at the time all other fraternities were getting blasted for promoting sexism and the Tolkien House felt left out. The Rubbermaid gets possessed by a portion of Rasferret's spirit to serve as his in-combat avatar. Initially armed with a mace, the Rubbermaid makes several victims before being shotgunned to bits by Hollister.
  • The evil of Crystal Lake brings a House of Horror ride's mannequins to life in Friday the 13th: The Carnival.
  • Stephen Graham Jones's Night of the Mannequins: a teenage boy and his friends attempt to play a prank with a mannequin they found in the woods, but instead "Manny" comes to life with a murderous desire for revenge for not playing with him anymore. Or so the group thinks. It's left to Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane whether Manny actually is alive or not, but in any case he doesn't kill anyone. The deeply unstable protagonist murders his friends himself, after becoming convinced that a horrible truck accident that killed one of them was Manny's vengeance. He thinks that if he kills them it will be cleaner and avoid collateral damage.
  • There's a case of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane in Secrets of the Shopping Mall, where there's a shopping mall called Paradise Park. Many runaway children end up there, lured by the fancy name, and those that go to live inside the mall hide during the day in the form of mannequins. It's left open whether they actually become mannequins or if they're just very good at holding still.
  • The mannequins in Shop Till You Drop... Dead! come to life at night, and have the ability to turn anyone foolish enough to spend a night in the mall into one of their number.
  • Wax: Most of the living wax mannequins are controlled by the Hive Mind of the two main antagonists, made for the purpose of killing and replacing everyone in town. Dud is an exception - despite being a living mannequin too, he is completely unconnected to the evil plot. Jill is suspicious of him at one point, and tries to convince Poppy that Dud is evil, but this is just a front to hide that she herself has been replaced with a mannequin.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In the fifth episode of the 1960s adaptation of Akuma-kun, a bodiless demon inhabits a mannequin left in storage. In this form, she's very strong, is able to teleport, can control people, and exhales a gas that turns living creatures into mannequins. Her main weakness is that she easily falls apart. The demon's modus operandi is to initiate contact as a "normal" animate mannequin, but as soon as her head gets knocked off the face becomes flat, featuring only a giant eye and a giant mouth. The demon is also able to telepathically control other mannequins (but, it seems, not humans turned into mannequins) and they may or may not gain similarly distorted faces. The demon is defeated when she's pushed into a Deadly Rotary Fan.
  • Channel Zero: Mike's dream at the beginning of "Candle Cove", as the film crew of the man interviewing him turn out to be mannequins and dummies.
  • Doctor Who: The Auton animated shop dummies, which made their debut in Jon Pertwee's first story, "Spearhead from Space"note , are the preferred footsoldiers of the plastic-controlling Nestenes whenever they visit Earth. They only appeared twice in the classic series, but the sight of them coming alive, climbing out of windows and killing people in the streets was one of the show's most iconic scares. There's a reason they're the first Monster of the Week in the revival.
  • A witch animates mannequins as minions in the Kolchak: The Night Stalker episode "The Trevi Collection".
  • In the Supernatural episode "Mannequin 3: The Reckoning", the Monster of the Week possesses mannequins to kill its victims. It sure was convenient that all of its targets happened to work with mannequins or use sex dolls.
  • Mannequin monsters occasionally show up among the villains of Super Sentai.
    • There's the puppet versions of previous Super Sentai teams unleashed by Basco in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. They reanimate previous teams' powers in the form of keys, who then become life size. There's no person in the suit, and yet they're trying to attack.
    • Mannequin Jamen and Torso Hildon of Episode 30 of Mashin Sentai Kiramager are respectively a Jamenshi whose head is a mannequin and a Jamen Beast whose head is a dress form. Mannequin Jamen's powers include turning people into mannequins, summoning those mannequins to act as shields, and throwing around explosive shopping tags. Torso Hildon's choice of ammo are sewing pins.
  • Tales from the Darkside: In "Everybody Needs a Little Love", a man named Curtis steals a mannequin to regain female company after his wife, Estelle, divorced him. He names the mannequin after his ex and increasingly treats the mannequin as a living companion, going so far as to take her on a vacation. However, the relationship turns abusive and when Curtis's friend Roberts comes to check up on him, the mannequin knocks him out and murders Curtis. Roberts is arrested for Curtis's murder and the human Estelle's corpse is also found in Curtis's apartment. The "mannequin" Estelle testifies against the three, stating that Roberts and Estelle were having an affair and that Curtis must've vengefully killed Estelle. Then Roberts' must've found out and murdered Curtis in return. The cops like the theory, but do have the issue that there were no fingerprints on the knife that killed Curtis. It's left ambiguous whether the living mannequin was all in Curtis's and Roberts's heads, whether she really came to life, or whether the mannequin got possessed by the human Estelle's spirit.
  • In "The Weird Tailor" of Thriller, the tailor Erik is abusive towards his wife Anna. To cope with the pain and humiliation, she's taken one of his mannequins, Hans, as a confidant. Erik accepts a job to make a special suit, unaware it's to be worn by his client's dead son to bring him back to life. Upon discovering the truth, he hands Anna the suit for her to burn it. She, however, is intrigued by the fabric and puts the clothes on Hans. The abuse subsequently escalates to attempted murder, which only is prevented because Hans comes to life due to the suit and kills Erik. He's happy to realize he and Anna get to be together at last. The basic plot of the episode was later reused for the film Asylum.

    Music 
  • Daniel Amos's Doppelgänger is a downplayed example. The cover art and liner notes feature photos of a mannequin who never does anything overtly violent, but is still framed to be as creepy as possible. And he does somehow get ahold of a real human face to wear as a mask...

    Newspaper Comics 
  • The Far Side had a Sunday strip with a horror movie blurb spoof, Night of the Crash Test Dummies. Later used as the cover of a strip collection.

    Podcasts 
  • In "Mannequin Episode" of Beyond Belief of The Thrilling Adventure Hour, Frank is visited by the living mannequins Terry, Gerald, Pat, and Bess, with whom he was friends for a short time during a time that he was transformed into a mannequin. During the visit, Prower, a mannequin hunter, attacks the quartet. He weakens them with oregano — "mannequin's bane" — and tries to kill them by drawing X's over their eyes, but Terry's heroism makes him decide to spare the group. Frank and Sadie are happy until the mannequins invite them along on the annual Dummies Night, which is celebrated by finding humans and ripping their limbs off. With some quick thinking, the couple lure the mannequins into a closet with fancy clothes and lock it.
  • Nikola Orsinov of the The Magnus Archives is a human transformed into a mannequin to serve the Stranger. For a long time, she served as the ringmaster of the Circus of the Other, during which period she stole the skins and voices of humans to disguise herself with.

    Roleplay 
  • Destroy the Godmodder has the creepy dummy. It was summoned rather innocently in the first game wearing a shirt that said: "godmodder's friend" on it. Then it started to go downhill.
    • It was amusing at first, but then it started to tear people's faces and arms off.
      • But then everyone forgot about it and it just sort of disappeared.
    • Until the second thread, when it came back even worse than the first time around.

    Video Games 
  • The indie horror game Angels Cove sees you as a private investigator hired to investigate a mansion on a deserted island, and you find out it's deserted save for containing plenty of mannequins. And then a storm strands you in the island, and predictably things goes horribly wrong after dusk. The mannequins coming to life and stalking you, for starters.
  • BioShock: In Poseidon's Plaza, there are Plastered Splicers. As their name suggests, they are covered in plaster, and they disguised themselves as Sander Cohen's statues, often attacking in silence unlike other splicers. Unlike the creepy plaster statues, these bleed and give a dull thunk when hit.
  • Several mannequins appears in the basement of level of The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation, coming to life and leaking blood from their eyes and mouth as they try to maul you on sight. Your best hope is to escape from the first is hiding underneath a table, and sneak past several normal, non-sentient mannequins, but the moment you escape you turn around to see three of these mannequins chasing after you. Run like crazy to avoid getting killed!
  • Condemned: Criminal Origins: In the mannequin shop, at the very beginning, you can see the mannequins each with their Slenderman-like appearance. You turn and start walking. LIGHTNING FLASH. They've teleported out of the display case and have now formed a semi-circle around the exit. You have no choice but to walk further. LIGHTNING FLASH. They've gotten even closer now. LIGHTNING FLASH. The closer you get to the hole, the more they push you backwards. Finally, once you reach the hole, if you look up you will see the mannequins in a ritual like stance in a circle around the hole. They're never mentioned again. Also, there are crazy homeless mannequin impersonators on that level, who will actually attack you.
  • Each game of DON'T LOOK AWAY has the survivors facing five of these, though the Entity can only have one active at any given moment.
  • Introduced in Dragon Quest XI is a category of "maiden doll" monsters: Dora-in-Grey, Golden Girl, Iron Maiden, Platinum Poppet, Steel Siren, and Zomaiden.note  They are all part of the Material Family, despite Steel Siren being described as undead. "Maiden doll" monsters consist of a puppet-like upper half and a cage to trap people in as lower half, evoking antique dress forms.
  • Dynamite Headdy. Wooden Dresser, a giant wooden mannequin, is a boss character who uses costumes that give her various powers to try and kill Headdy.
  • In The Evil Within, there's the Mannequin Factory of Chapter 11. Its mannequins are the everyday variant on the easier two modes. On Nightmare or AKUMA mode, there's mannequins skateboarding on sawblades patrol the corridors. They don't show signs of liveliness other than that they will go Sebastian if he enters their field of view.
  • In The Evil Within 2, there's a puzzle in Chapter 5 that requires a picture to be snapped of a mannequin in a specific setting. The mannequin goes from looking at a corner to looking straight at Sebastian during the flash. Nothing is said about why that happens.
  • Seemingly invoked in Fallout 4. 1st Generation Synths look like SkeleBots, and 3rd Generation Synths can pass for humans, but 2nd Generation Synths are at an uncomfortable middle ground and appear as porcelain-white, expressionless, genderless mannequins (until they take battle damage). Coincidentally, the game is the first in the Fallout series to feature actual mannequins hanging around the ruins of Boston. If you get both 2nd Gen Synths and mannequins in the same area...
  • One creepy room in Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse has no enemies or ghosts. Unless you take a good long look at one of the eyeless mannequins in the center. The head will turn to you and open its eyes, revealing yellow demon eyes. If you try to look at it again, it won't do it anymore. It is a common scare in the games to have a doll turn and look at you if you look at it through the camera. However, they only do this once, and the instant you lower the camera, they're back in their original pose, leading some gamers to wonder if they're just imagining things.
  • In Final Fantasy XI, after mannequins were added as furniture for player houses, they eventually started to be added as rare special enemies too.
  • These exist within the Natural History Museum in Ghostbusters: The Video Game. Their spears pack a punch.
  • The mannequins of Hello Neighbor are dress forms that live in the neighbor's house and much like the Shadow, with which the mannequins have some connection, their realness is up for debate. They show up in three challenges: Fear School, Fear Supermarket, and the Birthday Party, and although not necessarily dangerous they do work against Nicky.
  • LEGO Dimensions: The Doctor Who based level has Autons show up as mooks. The 2016 Ghostbusters Adventure World also has a quest where the player has to beat up a bunch of possessed mannequins for Leslie, who's too creeped out to smash them herself.
  • Little Nightmares II features enemies in the Hospital called the Patients. They're surgically-altered former humans who are now statue-still figures composed primarily of mannequin parts and prosthetics. In darkness, some of them are able to move and chase after you quickly and must be frozen back into statue poses with a light source, with mechanical joints and hollow plastic sounding when they are moving.
  • The Mannequin Game, a first-person horror game, have you being stalked by a living mannequin while stuck in an empty house.
  • Maplestory has these as enemies in the Kerning Square area.
  • The video game adaptation of Monster House contains a mannequin of Constance as a boss encountered by Jenny. It becomes encased in a chandelier, which it uses to attack the girl with.
  • The New Resident has these as the main enemy, created by ManneCorp. It turns out that the CEO made them as part of his experiments with immortality.
  • Paranormal HK have a sentient, eight-limbed mannequin demon called a "spider-mannequin" who haunts a department store and comes after you the moment you disturb it. The spider-mannequin can kill you on contact and you'll spend a level hiding underneath tables in a dimly-lit room, trying to sneak your way out without getting caught.
  • A mod for Portal 2 called "The Office Prank" has you play three different Aperture Science employees, two of which are out to prank the third by setting up mannequins around the facility. However, they don't realize at first that the mannequins are sentient, and murderous. While two of the employees' fates are not revealed, (though they've both encountered the mannequins by that point) the third shoots himself in the head, apparently in his sleep while he was having a nightmare about the mannequins.
  • Shin Megami Tensei I: Kugutsu (Japanese for "puppet") is a broken mannequin possessed by demons. It is a member of the Machine Race and dwells inside the mall to attack any human that passes by.
  • Silent Hill:
    • The Mannequins in Silent Hill 2. They look a bit different than most mannequins, resembling legs placed on top of legs. They stand still unless approached or agitated by light and will sometimes throw themselves into James' path out of nowhere.
    • Subverted in Silent Hill 3. One infamous room in the Hilltop Center is filled with mannequin parts, with only one of the torsos having a head attached to it. And it doesn't remain attached for long.
  • There's the Headless Mannequin in World of Horror as a reference to Junji Ito's "Headless Sculptures". It's a female form, evidently without head, that's armed with a knife. She's encountered during the Sculptures event at the School.
  • In In Sound Mind this is subverted since there is a friendly mannequin who gives you keys and thumbs up when you achieve something.
  • Living mannequins inhabit the mall in Yume Nikki -- Dream Diary. They are hostile, but will only act when the lights are out. The lights in the mall aren't reliably on, so Madotsuki gets to choose whether to get past them by cunning or the simpler option of keeping the lantern active.

    Web Animation 
  • The Unobtrusive Fantasy of Manny Quinn stars Manny Quinn, a tailor's dummy at Mischerschmidt Playhouse. He's in love with theatre's leading lady, but for a long time is powerless to stop her maltreatment at the hands of Mischerschmidt. Eventually, he musters his will to kill Mischerschmidt and locks the body away in his own dummy box.

    Webcomics 

    Web Originals 
  • The SCP Foundation has SCP-847: a usually normal seeming (if damaged) female mannequin, it comes to life if a woman approaches within 100 meters of it, with a single minded determination to murder the woman and [DATA EXPUNGED]. It's only known weakness is electricity, which will temporarily render it dormant.
    • Also SCPS 2353 and 2298
  • Worm has Mannequin, a serial killing Supervillain.

    Western Animation 
  • The Forever 23 store mannequins of "Clap Like This" of Close Enough act like regular mannequins by day and party all night when the store's closed. For them there's only the carefree life, which sounds great to the miserable new store employee Bridgette. Being forcibly turned into a mannequin in the store that doubles as an operating theater is a little less up her alley. Worse, because she's uncooperative, the mannequins threaten to use her for spare parts. Circumstances get three of Bridgette's friend captured too. Fortunately, the mannequins' party life makes them easy to involve in playing a clapping game, through which they clap themselves apart. The episode does not address whether (all) the evil mannequins started out as mannequins or if they were once human.
  • A villain in Inch High, Private Eye, known for being a Gadgeteer Genius (to the point that he even evaded arrest by fooling the police with a life-like replica of himself), built robots disguised as ordinary mannequins, sold them to department stores, then used them to rob the stores and return to him.
  • The Mona the Vampire episode "Night of the Living Mannequin". Of course, what Ms. Imagination Mona believes are mannequins being used to take over the town are really just mannequins being remade and modeling a new fashion line.
  • In the episode "The Mysterious Mr. Mist" of The New Adventures of Superman animated series, a disembodied spirit possessed a mannequin and tried to drag Lois Lane back to his underground kingdom.
  • One of SheZow's enemies is Manny Ken: a gigantic animated shop mannequin.
  • In the Super Friends episode "The Rise and Fall of the Super Friends", Mxyzptlk uses his Reality Warper powers to bring three mannequins to life at the abandoned Jefferson Department Store. Two of them hold Superman down while the third, who resembles Lois Lane in a bride's attire, lifts her hand up at the hero to subdue him with the kryptonite wedding ring she's wearing.


Examples of other mannequins:

    Advertising 
  • Lee ran an ad in 1981 for their Genuine Jeans. It follows two mannequins flirting Motor Mouth-style and ends with the female mannequin winking at the camera when she says they're "100% real".
  • In the 1990s, the Irish National Dairy Council produced a commercial in which one child asks another how many bones a body's got. The life-sized posing doll sitting next to them gets up to sing to them how a child's body has more bones than an adult's and that bones need calcium.
  • Agent Provocateur ran an ad in 1995 in which a man passing by the store window gets turned on by a mannequin's pose and outfit. She comes to life and puts on a show for him until he pokes a hole in the glass with his junk, triggers the alarm, and has to run for it.
  • In a Coca-Cola commercial from 1997, three male mannequins are standing in the store window while all kinds of events take place on the street, such as a car crash and a guy breathing fire. Being mannequins, they stay as they are until two kids drinking Coca-Cola walk by. Like weird goldfishes, the mannequins press their mouths against the glass to get a sip of the drink.
  • Q100 radio ran an ad in 2001 in which a female and male mannequin come to life to dance when a nearby car blasts Q100.
  • In 2003, Mercedes Benz ran two versions of the same commercial for the then-new W209 model. In the commercial, an entire street worth of mannequins dressed in black tie fashion gather around the Mercedes Benz W209 display to admire the car. A poor streetsweeper alone at work sees them and they see him and he pretends to have seen nothing and carries on.
  • The 2004 Urban Legend ad by Levi's features a man who takes the last pair of jeans of a mannequin. The mannequin refuses to part with his jeans and stalks the man out of the store, through traffic, to his home. In the end, the man falls asleep on his couch and the mannequin enters, sight firmly fixed on his jeans.
  • Mazda had a racy commercial in 2005 in which a man transports several female mannequins in his car to get them to his store. One of the mannequins gets excited from the car ride, gaining erect nipples and letting out a flirty giggle. An alternative version does away with the sexual aspect, but also with overt hints that the mannequin is alive.
  • Broadway Home Floral & Design ran a Christmas ad in 2007 in which a dress form becomes human after closing and plays around in the store. The commercial ends when she turns back into a dress form.
  • Old Navy: The SuperModelquins: The SuperModelquins ad campaign centers on a dozen or so mannequins — Kelly, Michelle, Amy, Eva, Heather, Josh, Wesley, Christopher, Kimmy, Natalie, Rita, and Barker the dog, and the cast is sporadically joined by the non-SuperModelquin Enrique — who are alive. They act as celebrities with social media presence and the commercials depict them as sassing each other around while pointing out how affordable Old Navy is and poking fun at their own mannequin limitations and perks.
  • Target in Australia ran an ad in 2012 in which all the mannequins in their stores come to life at night just to have fun. The watchman only notices their outfits are a little in disarray.
  • Stayfree ran an ad in 2012 for the then-new Ultrathin version of their pads. The commercial laments how women don't have their full range of mobility if they don't wear the right pad and depicts them as mannequins at this time. Then one wears the new Ultrathin version and turns (back) into a normal human.
  • In 2012, The Art Institutes created a commercial to showcase what heights students of theirs could reach. A mannequin wears a dress by Gustavo Cadile and tells about how it would've remained but a sketch if the designer had never studied the finer details of sewing or learned how to promote himself.
  • Find the One: The Fairy God Mother is a living dress form topped by a bobcut wig floating above the Triumph crown. She is dressed in a loosely fitted pink robe, possesses invisible arms, and gets things done with a Magic Wand and measuring tape. Her role in each commercial is to facilitate the discovery of the perfect bra among the many choices available.
  • Under the slogan "Everything comes to life at Hudson's Bay", Hudson's Bay ran a commercial in 2018 in which a male manequin in a small store gives in to his curiosity and visits the recently opened Hudson's Bay across the street. Inside, he meets a female mannequin and they have a blast together until he has to return to his own store the next morning. The store owner is confused why his mannequin has a lipstick print on his cheek.
  • Skittles: In one of four teasers for the Super Bowl campaign of 2018, David Schwimmer is the ventriloquist dummy of a ventriloquist dummy. He is fed skittles by the bigger ventriloquist dummy while wondering aloud if this is representative of the true commercial.

    Anime and Manga 
  • In "Wind Hole" of Osamu Tezuka's The Crater, the unnamed protagonist is in love with the mannequin Yukari. His best friend, roommate, and rival, Kazuo, hates the thing and takes the protagonist and Yukari into a wind hole to discuss the matter. The two men come to blows and the mannequin falls into a ravine. Kazuo, after a moment of contemplation, quietly takes care of the protagonist so that they can find a way out, at one point noting he's been wanting to spend some time together like this. At the hospital, the protagonist is attended to first and when the nurse returns for Kazuo, he falls apart into Yukari's broken parts.
  • In Mannequin no Hatsukoi by Michiko Murakami, a mannequin falls in love with a customer whose relationship has just stranded. She comes to life to be with him and, after some initial weirdness, he accepts her company. While he's asleep, the mannequin notices the remnants of his relationship and resolves to try to fix it despite her own feelings. She manages to reunite the two lovers and, in tears but also happy, takes her leave.
  • During the bakaneko arc of Mononoke all characters that aren't of interest to the mononoke are depicted as mannequins. They talk as humans do, but aren't shown moving and when knocked over lay stiff as a mannequin instead of crumpled like a human. The characters of interest do not see the mannequins as anything other than human. The mannequins can be considered symbolic of the human, a modern girl, who became the bakaneko.
  • Starting Episode 2 of Phantom in the Twilight, the ghost Wayne King takes possession of a mannequin to interact with other corporal beings. He could pass for a human if only his limbs wouldn't come off as easily as they do.
  • In Chapter 172, "Mannequa and Coaty", of RIN-NE a coat is stalked by the mannequin that once wore it in the store window. Rinne brings it to life to get the deets on the mannequin, Mannequa, and uses the coat, Coaty, to lay a trap. As it turns out, Mannequa isn't resentful of Coaty moving on while she has ended up on scrapheap, but she has come to tell her old friend something she didn't consider important while she was the only one to wear Coaty: there's a pin stuck in its collar that could prick Coaty's wearer. The two embrace, upon which Mannequa passes on.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman: In "Wail of the Ghost Bride!", Batman comes to the aid of either the ghost of Corrine Hellbane, a wealthy woman who fell overboard during her honeymoon 41 years ago, or of his hallucinations of her. Her husband, Alex March, was suspected of having pushed her for her money, but nothing could be proven. Whether a true ghost or Batman's overactive imagination, he sees her bridal image everywhere, notably in the form of a mannequin in a bridal store. Even more notable, Batman hears the mannequin warn him of danger behind him and when the thug attacking him breaks the window, the mannequin falls on top of him as if to protect Batman.
  • "A Rag - A Bone and a Hank of Hair! (1952)": An old tailor's dummy is taken out of storage for short use and then dumped in the corner of its owner's apartment. Near the window, it gathers all kinds of substances: dust, mud, rain, soot, rust, and oil. The summer sun brews life into this concoction, but it's a life easily extinguished without warmth. In winter, it instinctively goes looking for a source of heat when the apartment's radiator stops working and wraps itself tightly around its owner's body, which is the only warm thing in the room. He suffocates and the dummy dies thereafter because corpses don't produce warmth.
  • Brother Power the Geek: Brother Power is a living tailor's dummy that's also a supercivilian possessing immense strength and agility. He began existence as a normal tailor's dummy, of cloth held up by metal wires, that was left behind when the store closed down. Hippies made the abandoned store their home. One day, they are attacked by bikers and one hippie places his wet and bloody clothes on the dummy to prevent them from shrinking while drying. He also spills some oil on the dummy in the process. All of these ingredients allow a bolt of lightning to bring the dummy to life some time thereafter. His first act is to save the hippies from another attack, for which they name him Brother Power. "The Geek" is a title referring to his pseudo-humanity and he doesn't like to be called that. Brother Power is a proponent of the hippie philosophy (but not necessarily lifestyle) and doesn't actively seek out wrongs to right, but he also never walks away when someone needs help, even if helping comes with risks.
  • "Dugan and the Dummy" (Journey into Mystery #18): Dugan is a Trimble's Department Store worker known for his aggression towards male mannequins and his obsession with a female one he calls Isabella. One day, he starts a fight with a male mannequin in full view of a crowd outside the store window, and in front of that very same crowd is stabbed by the mannequin. The police dismisses the witness statements as nonsense, but they have no explanation as to why Dugan's corpse itself is a mannequin.
  • "Halloween Scene" (Scary Tales #7): A woman is locked in a store with a werewolf. When the werewolf corners the woman in the window display, she falls over, alerting two watchmen. As it turns out, the woman and the werewolf are both mannequins and part of a Halloween display. For the entirety of Halloween night, they've been enacting the same scenario over and over with no memory or knowledge of what they truly are. Each time it ends with the woman mannequin falling over and starts with the watchmen restoring the display and will so until midnight.
  • "The Black Dungeon" (Mystic #2): The kind-hearted Helga takes in the malformed Otto, forever earning his loyalty. Otto is murdered trying to save Helga from her abusive groom, after which Helga's only happiness comes from one of her husband's old tailor's dummies, which looks remarkably like Otto. The abuse escalates into a murder attempt and Otto's spirit possesses the tailor's dummy to save Helga. Helga happily spends the rest of her life with the dummy as companion, knowing it watches over her.
  • "The Wax People!" (Strange Tales #93): The planet Xaccus's population are the wax people and some are employed as mannequins.
  • Sue the Magic Manikin, also known as Sacony Sue, is a 1950s promotional character for Sacony that has two comics to her name. In the first, A Heart for Sue the Magic Manikin, Sue is given a heart by the manikin maker Peppo, so she can walk and talk like a human. She usually fulfills her duties as a mannequin in the store window, but in The Woodland Adventures of Sue the Magic Manikin she takes a vacation.
  • Superman: Mr. Mxyzptlk, in the identity of Ben DeRoy, brings a mannequin to life to spite Lois Lane. And not wanting to be a thief, he turns Lois into a mannequin to take the place of the now-living one. Once Superman shows up, the mannequin no longer is of use to Mxyzptlk and he undoes her life.
  • The Suske en Wiske album "Beminde Barabas"note  deals with Barabas's Love at First Sight encounter with Lotje, whom he met in his youth when a natural time distortion temporarily brought him to the 17th Century. Lotje is turned into a dress form with flowers for a head and floating hands by a local evil enchantress because her Number Two's love for Lotje in unrequited. Lotje also becomes immortal and is imprisoned until she's freed in modern day. Her return triggers long-buried heartbreak in Barabas, prompting his friends to travel back in time to get a cure for Lotje's state from the enchantress. In the end, Lotje regains her human form and gets some minutes alone with Barabas before she, no longer immortal, passes on to the spirit realm.
  • "The Hide-Out" (Suspense #14): A thief is puzzled to find a party going on at the furniture department inside Gracy's Department Store, but he lets himself be welcomed. The partygoers give him a stamp so that the watchman will ignore him and he gets to pick a suit of his choosing on the sixth floor. He's having a great time until at dawn the party dissolves and he freezes near the windows, having become a mannequin just like his new friends.
  • "Who's the Dummy?" (Mysterious Adventures #25): The painted wooden manikins in Stacey's Department Store awaken after closing to live the good life. One night, a store employee named Laura works late and discovers the manikins. They capture her and while the elders decide her fate, Laura befriends Paul, the manikin in charge of guarding her. The elders' verdict, eventually, is that Laura needs to die to protect their secret. Paul helps Laura escape, sacrificing himself in the process. She tearfully retrieves his twisted and broken body the next day to the confusion of the onlookers.

    Eastern Animation 
  • In Club of the Discarded, a group of discarded mannequins stored in an old building live a quiet family life. Then their owners return, put them in the trash, and bring in a newer set of discarded mannequins. The new mannequins are loud party animals and when the old group returns to reclaim their home it takes mere seconds for a brawl to break out. The end result is that the heavily damaged mannequins repair themselves with each other's parts and other junk lying around, thus fusing the two groups and allowing peaceful coexistence to return to the building.

    Films — Live Action 
  • Throughout Confessions of a Shopaholic, Rebecca Bloomwood imagines mannequins coming to life and communicating with her, sometimes with words, sometimes with gestures. They always try to get her to buy something, but not aggressively so. When Rebecca finally learns not to buy everything that catches her fancy, she imagines the mannequins clapping for her.
  • Two children who daydream about the same superhero, Rem Lezar, join forces to make him real in Creating Rem Lezar. They do this by dressing a mannequin up as him and, once they sit down next to him, he does come to life, but only for a day unless they can find the Quixotic Medallion to keep Rem Lezar in the real world. They succeed and wake up next to the lifeless mannequin back where their adventure started, but the promise isn't broken. They now each have a piece of the medallion, the police officer that finds them looks suspiciously like Rem Lezar, and the spiritual Rem Lezar now can always visit them.
  • In The Doll (also known as Vaxdockan), a lonely night watchman takes a liking to a mannequin and steals it to be his companion. At first, he knows she's a doll, but as time passes he imagines her coming to life. Their happiness sours when she grows to want more freedom and he refuses because he's afraid he'll lose her. Through circumstances, the other tenants find out about the mannequin partner and he tries to make amends by introducing her to them. She, however, keeps still as mannequins are wont to do. In anger, he smashes the "deceitful" figure, loads the pieces in a suitcase, and throws the suitcase in a river. His relief is short-lived, for when he gets home she's there all conjured up by his mental state. She coolly lets him know that she can't die as he long as he doesn't.
  • The second dream of Dreams That Money Can Buy is "The Girl with the Prefabricated Heart". It tells the tale of a stunning but vapid mannequin (possibly a robotic mannequin) named Julie, who rejects her literal One True Love because his want for affection messes with her flair. Two other mannequins help her get away from him, whereupon he dies.
  • Ellis in Freedomland: The clothing department’s mannequins come to life in Ellis’s dream. Their only contribution to the plot is three female mannequins acting as training customers for Ellis to practice sales techniques on, but they do provide loads and loads of pointless Padding!
  • After hitting her head in Holly's Holiday, Holly awakens to find the gorgeous male mannequin whose window she passes daily standing over her, alive and charming and all. She and the mannequin, Bo, start up a relationship in which he becomes increasingly more controlling. One thing he does is invite his parents, who used to be catalogue mannequins, over for a surprise visit and tell them all about his vision for the relationship. Upon realizing how unhappy she is, Holly breaks up with Bo and shortly after truly awakens from her blackout.
  • The titular character of Mannequin is Ema "Emmy" Hesire, the spirit of an Ancient Egyptian woman who prayed to the gods to escape an arranged marriage and find love in another place and time. Throughout the centuries, Emmy serves as a spiritual muse to artists and she gets to inhabit the art made into her likeness as long as only the artist is around. Her latest match is Jonathan Switcher, who remakes her into a mannequin as an odd job that fulfills his artistic aspirations. The two grow close and Jonathan ends up risking his life to save her current body from being destroyed, thus gifting Emmy true love and allowing her to stay human permanently.
  • The store clerk Philomena in A Mom For Christmas knows that the mannequins with faces are alive to some degree and works hard to save as many as she can when the store decides to replace them with faceless ones. One mannequin, Amy, gets a shot when the half-orphan Jessica wishes for a mother for Christmas Eve. Amy and Jessica get along great and Amy also develops a relation with Jim, Jessica's father. Jessica wants Amy to stay forever, but Philomena can't grant that wish: it's Jessica and Jim who must hold on to Amy with their hands and hearts on Christmas Eve for her to stay. Of course, the ritual succeeds.
  • Paranormal Prison: Late in the movie, the mannequin of Black Wolf comes to life and starts warping around the prison, scaring the crew. It ultimately chases them and locks them and Park Ranger Shtog in Mery Beth Flake's cell in Siberia (the solitary confinement building). The reason it did this was to get them to find the secret passageway Mary Beth Flake used to escape from the prison after she falsely accused Black Wolf of raping her.
  • In the 1935 short Two Hearts in Wax Time, the department store employee Joe draws the ire of his colleagues by coming into work drunk for the umpteenth time. They play a trick on him where they convince him, in his drunken state, that the mannequins are real people. Once his shift his over and Joe walks down the street at night, he imagines all the mannequins in the store windows coming to life, playing around and singing for him.
  • Six mannequins come to life in the store window at the beginning of the "All Over the World" segment of Xanadu. They join in on the antics of the rest of the segment.

    Folklore 
  • One of the school ghost in Japan that potentially resides in the art room is the dancing posing doll. There's usually multiple of them. The posing dolls are among the rare school ghosts that are never depicted as hostile, but they also barely ever are used because other art room ghosts are more popular.

    Literature 
  • In the "The Dummy That Lived" by L. Frank Baum, a fairy named Tanko-Mankie pulls a cruel prank in which they bring a mannequin to life by breathing on her forehead and then leaving her without guidance just to see what chaos follows. The mannequin can talk, reason, and walk, but those are the only skills she has that separate her from a newborn. She wears clothes and accessories because she saw the women gawking at her do that, but the clothes she picks don't match. She sits down at a cafe and orders coffee 'n' rolls because she sees another person do that, but the coffee burns her waxen and wooden body and she walks off without knowing she's supposed to pay. When a man raises his hat in greeting, she copies the greeting unaware of the gender association. Eventually, she's hit by a car and the huge hole in her head positively identifies her as a living dummy. She's taken to the police station, where Tanko-Mankie takes her life away the moment no one's looking.
  • "The Great Shop Window Dummy Seeks and Finds Her Skin" by René Crevel manifests consumerism as the Great Shop Window Dummy (La Grande Mannequin). The mannequin is a cosmic horror-like entity of fluid appearance with her own cult and admirers.
  • Ebenezer Sidney of "The Grey Automobile" is convinced the woman named Corrida el Basso, whom he is infatuated with, is a mannequin come to life that he saw shortly before a town over. It's not impossible she is, but it's more likely that Ebenezer isn't all there.
  • In "The Living Manikins", the manikins in Dribble's Department Store come to life due to an unexplained combination of electricity, light, and timing. They immediately set out to do whatever they want, disregarding the fact none of them is supposed to be alive and that things will get awkward when the store opens. The huntress enacts her display's scenario by hunting a stuffed fox on horseback throughout the store. The copper finally gets to be authoritative and use his nightstick. The drinking gentleman sets out to get something to drink instead of being stuck pretending to pour himself one. And so on. Hugo and Judy can't wrangle them despite their best attempts, so they resort to flipping the switch that seemingly brought the manikins to life in hopes it de-lives them. It works, and the manikins are left standing in whatever poses were their last.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Art Ninja: In "Day of the Dummy", Ricky accidentally brings a mannequin (who looks like his friend Ella) to life and Hilarity Ensues as he has to keep her out of trouble as she understands nothing about the world.
  • In the episode "Brum and the Shop Window Dummy" of Brum, Brum witnesses a woman steal an entire mannequin from the store window in order to get the dress the mannequin is wearing. Brum gives chase, collecting the various pieces the mannequin loses, and brings the pieces, dress, and thief back to the store. As the store owners and police officer gratefully wave Brum goodbye, the mannequin turns her head as her own way of saying thinks to the little car.
  • The fantasy at the core of "House of Dolls" of Fantasy Island belongs to the window dresser Francis Elkins. He fancies the mannequin Courtney and wants her to be alive. Roarke invokes the myth of Pygmalion and gives Francis a talisman of Aphrodite to channel the goddess's life-granting power. Courtney's love matches Francis's, but she is woefully naive of the human experience. Among others, she tells other guests that she was born at Bloomingdale's, that she's six years old, and makes it sound like she has a disconcertingly active sex life. At a fashion show on the island, she finds three friends of hers on display: Mindy, Sally, and Sybil. Courtney uses the talisman to bring her friends to life too. Francis takes care of the lot of them, earning their affection when he promises he'll take them to his next job and not let them be thrown out in favor of the new, faceless models. Soon enough, the weekend ends and the mannequins revert to a lifeless state. Francis is happy to have had even a short time with Courtney, and he's even happier when Roarke introduces him to Ms. Wilson, ostensibly the woman Courtney's form was modeled after.
  • The imaginary friend that runs the bar in Happy! is a posing doll.
  • The alien Allen Strange of The Journey of Allen Strange needs to blend in on Earth. To this end, he takes human form and brings a mannequin in a sports store to life so it can pose as his father. The mannequin is given the name Manfred Strange and throughout the series needs fine-tuning to properly act like a human.
  • In the episode "Eve" of Journey to the Unknown, a delusional man falls in love with a mannequin, Eve, after all the women he tried to get with turned out to be not sophisticated enough for him. But the mannequin with her fine fashion sense and gentle smile is everything he could ever wish for. He accidentally kills the store owner when he saves Eve from being destroyed and goes on the run with her. Soon after, he's killed himself by two troublemakers who want to rape the woman he's with. They make a hasty retreat when they realize she's a mannequin, failing to notice she's shedding tears over her dead lover.
  • In the episode "Barbi-Cute" of Love Spell, lightning brings a mannequin to life that had been used to play a cruel prack on the janitor Like. Luke takes her home with him and names her Barbi and the two fall in love during their time together.
  • The mini-series Mannequin Girls is about three mannequins from the ladies section on the third floor that get to unwind once midnight strikes and freeze on the spot when dawn comes. There's Mikiko, who's been around since the store opened and objects to being called an antique. There's Maimi, who's close to being too energetic to be a mannequin. And there's Anri, who's factory-fresh and a dreamer. They are sometimes unwantedly joined by Shota, a mannequin from the mens section on the fourth floor.
  • In the intro sequence of That Girl, Ann playfully waves at a mannequin in a store window that looks just like her. The mannequin winks back.
  • The mannequin Jeff from Today's Special owns a magic hat that makes him come to life when someone says "hocus pocus alimagocus". If it comes off his head, he turns back into a mannequin, and he can't leave the store either or he'll never be alive again.
  • The Round the Twist episode "Know All" is an adaptation of the short story "Know All" by Paul Jennings. A mannequin is part of one of Tony's art pieces around the time that the Twists find a chest filled with costumes, which only much later they learn are from a circus of which all members have perished in an accident. Intrigued by the find, they each dress up and find themselves bestowed with the talents and characteristics of the original owners. For fun, they dress up their scarecrow in a clown's outfit. This causes it to come alive and, being empty beforehand, to strongly take to the love the clown had for the other clown. Tony, who's the Fortune Teller, arranges for the mannequin to be dressed up as the other clown to reunite the loves. As both the scarecrow and the mannequin steadily become human-like due to the costumes, they decide to join the circus.
  • A segment of episodes 4050 and 4317 of Sesame Street is dedicated to two mannequins in a store window. One's male and the other female, but both are dandy-looking. They give a little performance in synchronized tap dancing.
  • One sketch of The Sonny and Cher Show involves Cher and Farrah Fawcett in the roles of mannequins in a store window. They make dummy jokes, complain about the cold hands and uncouth humor of the maintenance crew, disparage the looks of the celebrities they're modeled after this month, and end up getting their heads switched.
  • In the The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "The After Hours", the mannequins seem hostile at first, but it's revealed that the main character is a mannequin herself. She got to experience human life for one year and now she must return to her true state so that another mannequin can have her turn. The remake from The Twilight Zone (1985) has close to the same plot, but the mannequins are much creepier and the transformation back into a mannequin is much more painful-looking.
  • In the Wizards of Waverly Place episode "Alex's Spring Fling", Alex brings a mannequin to life to make Riley jealous. She names the mannequin Manny Kin and her plan works until she has to return him to his dummy state; because Manny has developed feelings, she can no longer undo his liveliness. She tries to give him another partner by bringing Justin's rare Calico Woman doll to life (and making her human-sized), but Manny only has eyes for her. The problem resolves itself when Manny volunteers for a dunk tank and goes under, because water undoes the magic.

    Music 
  • "Plastic Mannequin Love" by Tay Kewei is about a mannequin who has become part of the plastic soup. She recalls a time when she was still in use and fell in love with a handsome mannequin in the shop across the street. Plastic is forever, so she's convinced she'll see them again one day when they join the soup.
  • The song “Showroom Dummies” by Kraftwerk is about some dummies that come to life, break the glass in their display and go to a dance club to a dance.

    Music Videos 
  • The music video of Chromeo's "Come Alive" sees David Macklovitch, Patrick Gemayel, and Toro y Moi as respectively a passerby, security guard, and janitor walk around a department store where various female mannequins come to life and dance along to the song. Despite the mannequins also dancing with the security guard, the ending suggests the mannequins weren't alive after all when the security guard catches the other two feeling up regular mannequins and throws them out.
  • In the video for "Lovesongs (They Kill Me)" by Cinema Bizarre, the band is singing for an audience of mannequins. Towards the end, they either come to life or Strify merely imagines them doing so. They try to touch him, but he pushes them away.
  • The members of Girls' Generation are presented as mannequins in a window display in "Gee". After closing, they come to life to do as they please. They all have a crush on the window dresser. At dawn, they leave the store and the window dresser finds no trace of them but a lip print on his "employee of the month" photo.
  • The background dancers of "We Close Our Eyes" by Go West are large posing dolls.
  • Koda Kumi is presented as a mannequin inside a tailor's room in "Shake It Up". She comes to life at night at the behest of two puppet masters, who watch her through cameras and make her dance first for then with them.
  • In 2011, Mariah Carey made a new version of "All I Want for Christmas Is You" with Justin Bieber. In the accompanying video, Mariah is a Christmas display mannequin who comes to life.
  • In the video for "Busy" by Olly Murs, the lonely male protagonist builds himself a mannequin named Rose to keep him company. As he fully acts as if they are a couple and his friends politely play along with his fantasy, Rose eventually comes to life.
  • In the video for "To Die For" by Sam Smith, the singer is a wigless mannequin head staring out of a window display. After a while, the singer is the only mannequin head left. A man walks by who smashes in the window and takes the singer with him.
  • Sophie Ellis-Bextor is presented as a mannequin in a bridal store in "Get Over You". When her male partner is palced next to another bride mannequin by the store clerk, that qualifies as cheating. Sophie has the power to shatter glass and breaks out of the store display. She is joined in song and dance by the other bride mannequin and the many female mannequins on display in the shopping street, some of whom she also frees with her glass-breaking ability.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Colette Du Bois of Malifaux provides her showgirls with faceless, magical, clockwork mannequins that act as dressmaking mannequins, assistants, and bodyguards.

    Theatre 
  • In The Mannequins' Ball, mannequins get to have one ball per year to move about freely and even that is denied them if their stores or workshops stay open past their usual hours. As luck would have it, this year there's a strike going on, so many mannequins can make it to the ball this year. They mingle and share their fears of being thrown away as beauty standards change, share their frustration over having only one night for themselves, share their sorrow over missing parts, and so on. The party is disrupted when a human, the leader of the French Socialist Party, drops in in pursuit of a female mannequin he mistook for a pretty woman. His head is cut off with a giant pair of scissors to keep the mannequins' secret safe. A headless mannequin claims the head for himself and takes a chance to visit the humans' ball some blocks over. He's mistaken for the labor leader and bribed all night until the headless body of the real labor leader crashes the party to get his property back. Tired of humans, the mannequin gladly returns the head and leaps out of the window to escape.

    Toys 
  • Spin Master's Off the Hook is a fashion doll line of which all the characters are mannequins. They spend daytime modeling in a store window and do whatever they want after closing hours. Several lines show that on occasion they also go out during the day.

    Video Games 
  • The hero of the Drawn to Life series is a wooden mannequin brought to life (if not inhabited) by the Creator to save the world. While the hero is the same entity in both games, they do change mannequin bodies in-between. This helps explain the new abilities in the second game.
  • The protagonist of echochrome is a posing doll. By manipulating the camera, players have to guide it through mazes based on the works of M.C. Escher.
  • There's a bug in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim regarding the wooden mannequins in the player's house. They are actually NPCs coded to not act on any script. However, sometimes the code not to act doesn't load fast enough and they walk off their pedestals before being frozen on the spot, wherever that may be in the house. It's also possible to make the code not load at all and thus for the mannequins to act like normal NPCs. Giving the bug more in-game credence, the mannequins are NPCs whose race is set to "mannequin" to give them their wooden appearance. Setrace in consolecommands allows the mannequins' race to be changed to any other and, for that matter, to turn any other NPCs into mannequins.
  • Among the Animate Inanimate Object in Forgotton Anne are a dress form and a posing doll. The dress form is an incidental character that works as a receptionist at the Plant, while the posing doll is a major character. His name is Fig, he wears a wig, and instead of having his face on his head he has it on his torso. He's the leader of the rebellion and morally sound enough to give even Anne a chance to learn the truth. In the true ending, he's the one who keeps her memory alive and a major actor in rebuilding the Forgotten Land.
  • In the Half-Life 2 mod Nightmare House 2, there's a level with a lot of mannequins. They multiply and come closer when you do not look at them, but they do not attack. One is even implied to help you: there's a SWAT officer that knocks on a window from another room and gestures you where to go. When you get to the place where he was, there is just a mannequin.
  • The Model and the Mannequin of the Scribblenauts series are white humanoid objects that can be brought to life. If so, they'll hop instead of walk.
  • Mannequins in The Sims 2 are objects that are actually NPCs coded to have artificial white skin, no nipples, and to not act on any script. This skin can be applied to normal Sims through the debug mode. The living mannequins created this way are perfectly at home among the other monsters walking around in the game. If living mannequins are used to create hybrid offspring, the mannequin genes are dominant.
  • Mimikin of Yo-kai Watch is a pale store mannequin wearing a red fundoshi. It's an ice-attribute Yo-kai of the Tough tribe and the Tsukumono tribe and its grand skill is imitating others or forcing the person he's possessing to imitate others.

    Web Animation 
  • going to the store and its sequels are nonsensical shorts that feature first one mannequin and later many moving around weirdly. The trilogy ends when they all funny-walk into the ocean.
  • In "Life Is a Runway" of the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks Shorts, Rarity looks into a store window with two mannequins inside and imagines them flanking her on the catwalk.
  • Mannequins by Studio Cacti features two mannequins, 0436 and 0437, who get placed in store windows opposite of each other. A fierce competition breaks out between the two of who can draw the biggest crowd. Just as they come to their senses that their competition is unhealthy, a third store down the street unveils their own brand-new mannequin. To 0436's and 0437's annoyance, the masses go wild with admiration.

    Web Games 
  • Monica the Mannequin is a short Dating Sim in which a man who has no luck in love gets invited to a date by a mannequin whose window he passes almost daily. Depending on the dialogue chosen, Monica retreats back to her doll form and the man is thrown out of the restaurant for creeping out the other guests or she initiates a longterm relationship with the man.

    Web Originals 
  • In the Christmas-themed short film The Secrets of Matilda's Vintage Closet by Atomic Age Pictures, three mannequins of Mathilda's Vintage Closet come to life to dress up and play around to the tune of "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town".
  • In the short film Still Life, a man drives into a town that appears to be inhabited only by mannequins. They don't move when he looks at them, but when he looks away the scene gets "updated". He hits a mannequin with his car and, terrified of his surroundings, runs off and seeks shelter inside a house. He encounters a family of mannequins there and in his agitated state he smashes them to pieces. It's only when he freshens in the bathroom that he notices blood on them and normal human cops rush in to arrest the crazed murderer.

    Western Animation 
  • In the Columbia Cartoons short "Merry Mannequins", the two mannequins in the store window, Mary Mannequin and Dan Dummy, seek to get married after bing shot by a Cupid mannequin. The rest of the department store, consisting of more mannequins, mannequin parts, and other living objects arrange a wedding ceremony for them. Just as the newlyweds are to enjoy their life together, the clock strikes five and everyone has to hurry back to their right places. One of the attending mannequins, who's made of wax, dies by falling atop a heater, and the newlyweds arrive back at the window with their clothes in tatters. The Cupid mannequin laughs, earning himself a kick right through the window.
  • In the Goofy Disney short "How to Dance", George Geef gets a dress form to serve as his practice dancing partner. For the most part, it's a regular dress form, but she does get drunk after a cup of punch.
  • During the song "La-La-La-La-Labia" of the episode "Clara's Dirty Little Secret" of Drawn Together, Clara hides from the mob by posing amidst mannequins in a store window. She gives herself away when she sneezes, but as the mob turns towards the window it's the mannequins that make a run for it. The mob opts to go after them, which allows Clara to escape.
  • Family Guy: There are two instances of living mannequins.
    • In "Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington", a parody of the intro sequence of That Girl puts Peter in the role of Ann. Like her, he playfully waves at a mannequin in a store window that looks just like him. The mannequin winks back and a frightened Peter runs straight into traffic.
    • In "Hefty Shades of Gray", Chris remarks that he likes the look of a headless lingerie mannequin. In a Deleted Scene, it's revealed that Chris took the mannequin home with him to use as sex doll. As a Cutaway Gag, it stares forlornly out of the window when Chris leaves on a date with Kristen. Thereafter, it resorts to looking up porn on Chris's laptop.
  • There are two Merrie Melodies shorts that feature mannequins and one mannequin in particular as the title screen character. The shorts are "A Great Big Bunch of You" and "We're in the Money", with the latter potentially being a prequel to the former.
    • In "A Great Big Bunch of You", a male mannequin just brought to the dump brightens up his lot by playing music. Other mannequins and dress forms, as well as a bust and other discarded items join him.
    • In "We're in the Money", many objects within the department store come to life at night when the guard goes home. Among them are several mannequins, of which one leads the final third of the nighttime merrimaking.
  • While the Mane Five are sharing scary stories in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Scare Master", Rarity offers the tale of the mannequin that came to life at night to haunt the costumes. To Rainbow Dash's annoyance, that's the extent of the tale.
  • In the Pickle and Peanut episode "Movie Camp Out", the mall's mannequin folk become active at night to drink from the fountain, eat trash and pizza, care for the auto-buffers, train standing still, be silent, and be fashionable. They explain to Pickle that eons ago their ancestors fled to the mall to evade taxes and ugly people; a story the veracity of which Pickle questions but doesn't pursue. Peanut steals the pizza vending machine to buy himself a good spot in line for Night Hog 3, provoking the mannequins into war against the nerdy moviegoers. Once they discover this is all about Night Hog 3, they reveal they already snuck into the theater to watch it, spoil the plot twist, and go in to watch it a second time as the angry nerds retreat.
  • Xipe of "In Your Own Skin" of Victor and Valentino is a probably-god-definitely-fashion-designer. During the song "In Your Own Skin", his mannequins and outfits are his backup dancers.

    Real Life 
  • There's an Urban Legend regarding a bride mannequin dubbed La Pascualita. It began when in 1930, shortly after the death of her daughter, Pascuala Esparza put a new mannequin in the store window of her bridal boutique in Chihuahua, Mexico. The mannequin is very detailed and carries a resemblance to Esparza's daughter, which caused the locals to speculate the mannequin was actually the daughter's embalmed corpse. About a century later, that particular rumor has lost its conviction because corpses can't be kept in pristine condition for so long. But the secondary rumor, that the mannequin is possessed by the daughter's spirit and moves around at night, has not been negated by time.
  • In 1937, Lester Gaba created a life-like plaster model for Saks Fifth Avenue, dubbed Grace by Life, which he liked so much he made a copy that he named Cynthia. Both Grace and Cynthia became the subject of a Life photoshoot, the first to show off new advances in mannequin-making, the second to highlight's Cynthia's rise in the New York cafe society. Cynthia became a true celebrity, receiving invitations, fan mail, gifts, promotional gifts, subscriptions, and hosting both a newspaper column and a radio show. Cynthia's popularity survived her Disney Death (she broke from a fall, but was repaired), but not World War II, during which Gaba served in the army. Attempts were made to put her back in the spotlight in the '50s, but it didn't work because the glamor days she was part of were over.


Top