M3GAN finally arrives in UK theatres today, and horror fans will be eager to see the spine-chilling new film.
M3GAN, created by James Wan, depicts the story of an orphaned girl whose roboticist aunt tries to alleviate her loneliness by making her an AI-powered android companion to play with. Unfortunately, her new bot bestie quickly grows possessive and begins chopping and dicing.
While the film does shake up the horror doll genre, it is far from the first deadly toy to keep us awake at night.
So, what better way to commemorate M3GAN’s debut on this side of the Atlantic than by grouping up the creepiest dolls in cinema, from Chucky to Annabelle?
Child’s Play
Chucky, the first creepy doll, originally terrified audiences in 1988’s Child’s Play.
Chucky, a children’s toy possessed by the spirit of a bloodthirsty serial murderer, is regarded as one of the most well-known horror villains of all time.
Since then, eight Child’s Play films have been released, including fan favourites Bridge of Chucky and Seed of Chucky.
The Boy
Annabelle
People were so terrified by The Conjuring’s demon doll that it spawned its own film franchise.
Annabelle originally featured in her own stand-alone film in 2014, and she has since starred in Annabelle: Creation in 2017 and Annabelle Comes Home in 2019.
The terrifying doll is first discovered locked up in the basement of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, until it is revealed that the doll is inhabited by a malicious entity conjured up by Satanists during a house invasion.
Dead Silence
Billy, a ventriloquist dummy, is the star of Dead Silence, a 2007 film. Billy begins killing people after being possessed by the soul of a lady named Mary who is hellbent on vengeance.
Not simply ‘killing,’ mind you. Billy also tears out his victims’ tongues, preventing them from screaming. So that’s the end of the Toy Story 5 cameo.
Alma
Poltergeist
The scary clown doll from Poltergeist was the stuff of 80s youngsters’ nightmares.
The film follows the Freeling family as they discover their home is haunted by malicious ghosts and sits on an old graveyard.
An entity eventually steals married couple Diane and Steve’s little daughter Carol, but it’s a scene involving a toy clown owned by the couple’s son Robbie that steals the show.
Robbie ends up being dragged under his bed by the clown and we’ve never really recovered.
Pinocchio
Are you surprised that Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of the Disney classic made the cut? You really shouldn’t be. For Pete’s sake, the doll has claws protruding from its back.
Furthermore, the first time we see Pinocchio, he’s crawling around Geppetto’s basement in such a creepy way that it makes Regan from The Exorcist’s famed reverse crawl down a flight of stairs look totally natural. Pinocchio should be here.