Child’s Play came out recently and wow that movie is unsettling. It’s about a little girl who creates a talking fork. This talking fork has some sort of identity crisis and decides to jump out of an RV. The fork begins killing people and crying about how he was meant to help people eat chili.
Oh wait that's our fan fiction titled Child's Play Meets Toy Story. Sorry. Anyway, the Child’s Play remake is in theaters and it may have left some people wondering if there are any other killer dolls creepier than Chucky. It goes without saying that killer doll movies have been a sub-genre in horror for many years. Which of these toys are the scariest of the scariest? Check out the list to see the ten scariest killer dolls in movies!
10. Brahms
Since Lauren Cohan stars in The Boy it’s fun to imagine that the movie is actually Maggie’s prequel story to The Walking Dead. Dolls AND zombies?! Hopefully, therapy still exists in the apocalypse. In reality, The Boy is about Cohan’s character going to a creepy house in order to take care of a crazy couple’s porcelain doll named Brahms. Apparently, the real Brahms had died years earlier and his soul transferred into the doll.
A bunch of scary stuff goes down. Brahms seems to be able to move around on his own. Things escalate when Brahms’s voice is heard around the house. However, the movie ultimately culminates to a terrifying head when Brahms eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We’ll give everyone a moment to collect their nerves. Okay seriously, Brahms is super freaky and the film’s end reveal makes the character even scarier.
9. Slappy
Fun fact. Slappy The Dummy never slaps anybody in any of the Goosebumps books or films. NOT ONCE. What a missed opportunity. Slappy is easily the most iconic villain of the Goosebumps universe. It makes sense considering that Slappy is downright maniacal. Slappy’s whole motivation is to enslave whoever loves him. Isn’t that super sucky of him?
Well, more elegantly stated Slappy wants to enslave whoever brings him back to life. What’s cool about Slappy, like all of the Goosebumps books, is that he’s inspired by adult horror stories (Slappy is inspired by the film Magic). Yet, somehow R.L. Stine is able to make it palatable for children. Actually, Slappy is even scary to adults.
8. Billy
Between Saw and Dead Silence it seems like director James Wan has a special affinity for terrifying puppets. It’s shocking that Wann didn’t make a talking puppet be the villain in his Aquaman movie. Although Billy has become the face of the Saw franchise at this point, his introduction in the original film terrified audiences back in 2004. People wen’t into the movie thinking that they were going to watch a movie about helpless victims die in brutally creative fashion.
However, there’s a scene midway through the movie where Billy uses a tricycle to peddle into a room. Then Billy opens his mouth. Then we hear Billy’s voice. The whole sequence is so scary and unassuming. We’re expecting to be spooked by all of the gory kills, not the bizarre imagery of a ventriloquist doll on a bike. Yet, Billy’s inclusion starts to make sense as the film moves along. The murderer Jigsaw uses Billy as a mouthpiece in order to speak to his victims. Never mind. We’re not so sure if that all makes sense. Either way, Billy is the stuff of nightmares.
7. Babyface
Babyface is sort of weird because the very concept of Toy Story is creepy in and of itself. The thought of toys standing up and talking on their own once a person leaves the room is a terrifying thought. However, Pixar is able to make all of this seem normal until Babyface shows up.
Toy Story spends a lot of its running time teasing how Andy’s neighbor, Sid, loves to torture toys. We don’t really get a full understanding of Sid’s depraved mind until Woody ends up in his room. All of a sudden a bunch of mutant-toy creations begin crawling off the shelves. Woody tries to run away until they catch him. Babyface is like a…how does one describe Babyface? It’s a toy that has a spider body, but with a baby’s head that looks like its had all of its hair burnt off. Sure Babyface turns out to be on Woody’s side, but the very thought of the toy has warped the minds of children for years to come.
6. Billy - Dead Silence
Between Saw and Dead Silence it seems like director James Wan has a special affinity for terrifying puppets…named Billy. Look, if a name works it just works. Billy 2.0 basically looks like Slappy except with way more stage makeup. He’s a henchman for a dead ventriloquist named Mary Shaw.
What had happened is that many years ago Mary was murdered by a mob and her ghost has been taking people out ever since. Billy does Mary’s bidding by luring in her victims. He’s memorable because he has the classic killer doll design. Billy has rosy cheeks, wears a tux, and has eyes that peer into people’s souls.
5. Blade
Any kid growing up in the nineties the probably remembers going to Blockbuster and always seeing the Puppet Master VHS with Blade on the cover. The bigger question is why was Puppet Master always left on the shelf? Were people that terrified of its VHS jacket?
Blade’s character design is really scary. His face looks like a demented version of V from V For Vendetta. It doesn’t help that he has hooks for hands. Blade also has a spooky backstory. He had been a German soldier that ended up betraying the Nazis and his soul is ultimately trapped inside of a puppet. Blade is used for evil purposes by a couple of different bad guys throughout the series. However, Blade reaps vengeance upon his evil masters.
4. Annabelle
We’re starting to be convinced that the reason James Wan makes so many movies about possessed dolls is only because he wants to dominate every top ten list on this list. Who can blame him? It’s a tremendous honor. Annabelle has had a surprising amount of longevity. The character went from being a standout side character in The Conjuring to being a headliner of her own series.
It makes sense. Not only is Annabelle’s design scary, but her unrelenting need to rain terror on people is unsettling. Most horror villains have specific motivations. Annabelle on the other hand just wants to kill everyone. Even though Annabelle has a tragic backstory, she chooses to take her anger out on anyone who stands in her way.
3. Doll From Deep Red
Can some horror films at least try to have titles that won’t absolutely terrify their audience before even seeing the movie? Deep Red. Might as well call it Blood or Gore or This Movie Has A Horrifying Doll In It: You’ve Been Warned.
Deep Red is one of horror maestro Dario Argento’s most famous films. It’s essentially a slasher movie framed in a whodunit narrative. Deep Red has all of the classic Argento shenanigans. There’s vibrant colors, funky synth music, tons of blood. Oh yeah, and there’s a really freaky doll. The doll only shows up in one scene, but it’s unquestionably one of the movie’s most unsettling moments. It’s scary due to the fact that the doll is introduced in this big wide shot. The effect is jarring in that the audience can’t tell if they’re looking at a child or a doll running around in a room. Then we get a close up of the doll and let’s just say people won’t be sleeping right for a while.
2. Talky Tina
Sure Talky Tina comes from a television show, but so what. Twilight Zone’s Talky Tina is where it all began. Child’s Play is almost the exact same plot as The Living Doll episode minus all of the marital themes. All of the creepy two-faced nature of killer dolls ( They love to play with kids, but they love killing adults even more) was very much cemented into pop culture because of The Living Doll. Talky Tina is just as scary today as she was in 1963.
People gotta give it up to Talky Tina for having more creative ways to murder people than her killer doll contemporaries. While Chucky stabs people to death, Tina straight up lets people step on her face so that she can trip them to death.
1. Chucky
It’s fun to talk about Child’s Play since it always gives someone the opportunity to say Bride of Chucky’s amazing tagline. Chucky gets lucky. Look, there’s no denying that Chucky is absolutely the poster child for killer dolls.
The red hair, scars (which appeared in the later films), and overalls are all iconic images embedded into everyone’s brain. However, what’s amazing about Chucky is that he is the accumulation of every killer doll that has come before. The very concept of Chucky understands that the idea of murderous toys are at once ridiculous and terrifying. Chucky is without a doubt the funniest and scariest icon in horror.