History Main / CreepyDoll

* The action figure in the short story [[http://whisperingspirits.dragynspice.com/2009flashissue.pdf "Good Friends and Good Family" (scroll down)]] by Desmond Warzel isn't particularly creepy at first, but [[FromBadToWorse it gets worse]].

* The animated short ''WesternAnimation/{{Alma}}'' has a little girl find a whole toyshop of creepy dolls including one that looks just like her. [[spoiler:[[AndIMustScream Then she becomes that doll by touching it]] and the shop sets up for its next victim.]]

* PlayedForLaughs in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'' with a doll that repeats over and over the word 'KILL'. The same episode has another doll that repeats 'DIE'. When the two dolls meet, things [[CargoShip get weird]]...
* Breach of ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex'' collects creepy dolls, [[CollectorOfTheStrange among other things]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' ChristmasSpecial, in the room full of defective equipment there is "a creepy doll whose eyes follow you around the room". After it's introduced, its eyes fall out and roll across the floor.
* Yoki the TrashTalk spewing doll from ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes''.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': The puppeteer's puppets from "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E23InspirationManifestation Inspiration Manifestation]]", or at least when he manipulates them to shun Rarity.
* PlayedForLaughs in a Halloween special of ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' in which Pops tells a scary story involving a doll named Percy.
* A few of these appeared in certain ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' episodes. Leading the list is Mr. Friend, a glitchy prototype doll Stu made in the episode "[[Recap/RugratsS3E11HomeMoviesTheMysteriousMrFriend The Mysterious Mr. Friend]]", who couples this with MonsterClown.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS11E8SanitationInsanityBunnyHunt Sanitation Insanity]]", one of the junk items that [=SpongeBob=] and Squidward find is a discarded doll that tells Squidward it wants to destroy him.

* ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'': Pretty Penny, a doll that Aunt Josephine gave Violet in ''The Wide Window''.

* ''Robert the Haunted Doll'' is a doll on display at the Fort East Martello Museum. It is the former doll of painter and author Robert Eugene Otto. When he was a child, Otto was given the doll as a gift from a servant who, according to legend, used black magic to curse it. Later research by the museum, however, contradicted this with the belief Robert was purchased as a birthday gift by Eugene's grandfather in Germany. However, there doesn't seem to be much to indicate whether he was bought or a custom order. As such legend now wonders if he came "haunted" or was made "haunted" because he was special to Gene. Through the years, family members reported hearing Otto speaking to the doll, and hearing a strange, inhuman voice answering back. They also reported that the doll seemed, at times, to move. Reports of the doll's activities continued by others even after Gene's death. People who visit the doll where it currently resides sometimes claim the doll moves and that, if they want to photograph it, they need permission first otherwise their cameras don't work.
** Even worse is the fact that the doll's owner's wife (who hated the thing...like ''everyone else'') apparently started haunting their old house. Robert's old room, to be exact. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF7488WHcok This Travel Channel clip]] insinuates that [[AndIMustScream she has no choice in the matter]]. Oh, also, Robert ages, apparently. His hair's gone white and he's got liver spots now...
* Related to Robert the Haunted Doll is ''Annabelle the Haunted Doll'', whose story would become the basis of ''Film/TheConjuring'' and its spinoff ''Annabelle''. Possibly even more terrifying than the former, this Literature/RaggedyAnn doll was first owned by a woman by the name of Donna, whose mother purchased the doll from a hobby store in the 1970s. She and her roommate were cool with having the doll at first... until freaky things started happening in their apartment, where the doll not only supposedly moved on its own, but also ''wrote messages.'' When a medium was consulted, she said that the doll was being inhabited by the harmless spirit of a girl named Annabelle who died on the property, and Donna and her roommate felt compassion for the spirit. However, Annabelle the Doll was not what she seemed as she reportedly violently attacked one of Donna's friends. After two incidents, the famous paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren were consulted and eventually came to the conclusion that the doll was being haunted not by the spirit of a little girl, but by a demon. The doll was eventually relocated to the Warren Occult Museum in Moodus, Connecticut, where it is reported that the doll still moves and growls at visitors on occasion from behind its glass case.
** Also related to this story, a skeptical man came in one day, and in TooDumbToLive fashion, began to ''taunt'' the [[DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu reportedly demonic doll]]. Result? He was [[ForegoneConclusion killed in a motorcycle crash mere hours later]].

* Surrealist artist Hans Bellmer combined this trope with the bodies of pubescent girls for maximum creepiness. His dolls inspired the ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'' Mannequins. See a Not-Safe-For-Work-Or-Sanity [[http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/7426/292020la20poupee2020han.jpg photograph]].
** Allegedly, he developed his "thing" for ball-jointed dolls after meeting his 15-year-old niece. Thankfully he felt his feelings for her weren't appropriate and switched to the "poupee" (puppet) instead. FromBadToWorse after his wife died.

* TruthInTelevision moment about these things; according to one [[http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/12/dead-or-alive-the-eyes-hold-the-.html?ref=hp "study"]]m we perceive what is alive and what is inanimate by the look of the face and eyes more than anything else, so now we know the human truth. Dolls are just freaky soulless things!

* The Island of the Dolls ("La Isla de la Munecas") south of Mexico City, featuring trees decorated with hundreds of mutilated dolls. It also has a reputation of being haunted

* Older "talking dolls," especially those made in the 80s. The problem lies in their distorted voices: for example, Talking [[Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse Pee-Wee Herman]] has the character's trademark "Secret Word Scream," which sounds more like a bloodcurdling ''roar''. The official [[Franchise/ToyStory Sheriff Woody doll]] ''averts'' this because it uses a state-of-the-art voice chip instead of the old miniature record player.
** To be more specific: How they (that is, the string-operated ones) normally work is that pulling on the string winds up an internal clock spring, which when released causes a miniature record disc to revolve at a certain speed. Trouble is, they usually play back too fast, resulting in a screechy, garbled voice that you can only avoid by manually holding the string back. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4N1x0bQ_V4 Case in point]]. Made even worse when the dolls start getting on in years, and the sound units start suffering from the usual age-related degradation, which can result in the voice becoming even more distorted or even skipping between different lines.

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl6hNj1uOkY Doll Face]] video features a doll face on a jack-in-the-box type contraption that mimics images on the tv screen trying to find the perfect visage for itself. The worst part is the fact that the thing is apparently sentient, and it falls very ''very'' deep into the UncannyValley once it paints its face with makeup to give it such a healthy glow that it ''resembles a human face''.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu-8wGbWMro This]] might help, although it does increase the tear-jerker quality. If nothing else, the song is amazing.
** If it makes you feel any better, it ''is'' a human actress' face on the doll.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kvenmWEhFE It's Baby Laugh'a'Lot!]]
* [[https://www.youtube.com/user/JeepersMedia This YouTube user]] lampshades this trope to its fullest.

* Then there's that ghost story...Dolly one-step, dolly two-step, Dolly's gonna get you...Don't tell me you weren't scared of that as a kid!

* The marionettes used in the OP of the Chilean SoapOpera [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF6wKNJQGwI "Los Titeres"]]. [[UncannyValley Brrrrr!]]
** The lyrics of the song skyrocket it into scary: "You are not the owner of your life/We are puppets and nothing else/Our threads are Fate/Which moves us at its will"...
*** Not helped by the ''very'' CreepyMonotone singing voices and the just as terrifying background music.
* [[https://41.media.tumblr.com/6756997834088b9d5485ffece00ea2fc/tumblr_node3rqI0h1u9bcf6o1_500.jpg Little Miss No-Name]]

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j2xEwEHbrE "My Buddy, My Buddy...wherever I go, he goes..."]]
** ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HAlW9KQyXA shows the other dolls in the toyline.]]

* [[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/cc/42/85/cc4285a9b600126284176b1e6e9249b6.jpg Mattel's Saucy doll.]] The packaging itself is rather... off.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffing_Sal Laughing Sal]]

[[folder:Art]]
* The trademark ragdolls from [[Creator/AzaSmith Aza Smith's]] ''Website/GrindhouseAndWatercolorsTheRevulsionAndTerrorOfAzaSmith''.

[[folder:Comedy]]
* In his ''Live at the Met'' comedy special, Creator/RobinWilliams referred to the Teddy Ruxpin teddy bear line as part of his talk about raising a child. Apparently, he found that teddy bear rather creepy, imagining it telling his child: "You must kill Mommy and Daddy!"
[[/folder]]

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' has [[OurHomunculiAreDifferent Soulbound Dolls]], crafted from a fragment of a creature's soul -- either [[SoulJar donated]], or [[ImHavingSoulPains taken forcefully]]. In theory, they're {{Empty Shell}}s, but in practice they [[CloningBlues retain some of the donor's personality]], and it's not predictable ''which'' [[CameBackWrong personality traits will appear]]. On top of that, they're the only construct that's [[WeakWilled vulnerable to mind-affecting effects]], so even if they start out okay, they could still become BrainwashedAndCrazy later.

* ''WebOriginal/{{Mortasheen}}'' has an entire sub-category of monsters based on this, some examples being [[http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/ragamuffet.htm a ragdoll stuffed with mind-control parasites]] and [[http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/despire.htm a teddy bear that manipulates emotion]].

* One of Creator/DCComics' stranger creations was ''ComicBook/BrotherPowerTheGeek'', a tailor's mannequin brought to life by a combination of bloodstained clothing and [[LightningCanDoAnything a bolt of lightning]]. Essentially a human-sized living doll, he moved by shambling around bonelessly and when wounded, he remained alive and could be repaired by being sewn back together, leaving him covered in ScaryStitches. Being a doll, the Geek was completely unaware of how horrific he seemed to other people -- which only made him more horrific for his innocent obliviousness. Strangely, the Geek was not a proactive character: he was literally only a doll, with the plot revolving around people's reaction to him. The character was revamped by DC's DarkerAndEdgier Creator/{{Vertigo|Comics}} line in the 1990s and became, somehow, even worse, gaining the ability to invest his spirit into any other doll, which would then bear his voice and his face. Ironically, the original character was created during TheSixties to warn people that [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs drugs can make you do weird things]].

* In an issue of the revamped ''CREEPY'' comics there was a story called "The Doll Lady". Needless to say, it was creepy.

[[folder:Comedy]]
* In his ''Live at the Met'' comedy special, Creator/RobinWilliams referred to the Teddy Ruxpin teddy bear line as part of his talk about raising a child. Apparently, he found that teddy bear rather creepy, imagining it telling his child: "You must kill Mommy and Daddy!"
[[/folder]]

* In his ''Live at the Met'' comedy special, Creator/RobinWilliams referred to the Teddy Ruxpin teddy bear line as part of his talk about raising a child. Apparently, he found that teddy bear rather creepy, imagining it talking to his child "You must kill Mommy and Daddy!"

* As you can see at the top of the page, Music/JonathanCoulton has a song about [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgfklKnOg4w this very trope]]. In fact, it's the {{Trope Namer|s}}. It tells a story in the second person about how you buy a rustic cottage with your "bag of big-city money" and discover a doll in the attic with "a ruined eye that's always open" and "a pretty mouth to swallow you whole." [[TheCatCameBack The doll begins popping up everywhere]], tormenting you, and then the two of you [[ItMakesSenseInContext die in a fire]]. This [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane may or may not be all in your head]]. Sleep tight!

* In ''Fanfic/TheSecretLifeOfDolls'', it's particularly bad with [[Literature/{{Twilight}} Tonner Edward Dollen]], but at first when [[Film/VanHelsing Anna Dollerious]] says what she thinks about getting [[http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v118/cleoicons/dolls/secret_life/sld_nightterrors.gif The Littlest Edward]]:

*** Also related to this story, a skeptical man came in one day, and in TooDumbToLive fashion, began to ''taunt'' the [[DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu reportedly demonic doll]]. Result? He was [[ForegoneConclusion killed in a motorcycle crash mere hours later]].

* The creepy-weird avatar of the mysterious [[http://www.amazon.com/Parent-Child-Testing-Product-Pack/dp/B002A6HXL6/ref=pd_sbs_hpc_2 Parent Child Testing Product]]. Reviewers are still trying to figure out what it does as well as [[MemeticMutation why it's only sold in a 5-pack]].

* [[http://www.nightmare-fuel.com/saucy-doll-from-mattel/ Mattel's Saucy doll.]] The website is appropriate. ''Look at that face''.

* [[MonsterClown Clown dolls]], invoked by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwXdSH2Co78 this USPS commercial]].

* The ''Struts'' fashion doll line. Toy ''ponies'' with big come-hither eyes that can be dressed up Barbie-style. [[http://www.amazon.com/Struts-Fantasy-Fashion-Runway-Sierra/dp/B0014UFCZI No, really.]]

* How about [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqkNPcUMffU this commercial]] for UsefulNotes/{{P|layStation3}}S3?

** The short story included with the first adventure in the ''[[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Strange Aeons]]'' adventure path features soulbound dolls constructed by a dollmaker who had become a cultist of [[EldritchAbomination Nyarlathotep]] (now driven half-mad with guilt for what he's done). The narrator, who owned one such doll as a child, has a flashback to a repressed memory where it drove her to dismember a stray cat with a butcher's cleaver.

* One of Gahan Wilson's cartoons, which was used as the cover and the title of a collection of his works, shows an attic with all the broken toys -- rocking horses with broken legs and teddy bear without an eye or an arm. And the teddy bear is telling the others: "Someday when he's old and weak, he'll get nostalgic and come up here to see us. Then we'll get him."

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' contains a number of anomalous dolls: