Fear Fest: Ventriloquist Dolls!
OCTOBER 28th, Ventriloquist Dolls
“Blessed be Providence which has given to each his toy: the doll to the child, the child to the woman, the woman to the man, the man to the devil! ’”
-Victor Hugo
First off, if you don’t think that these dummies are scary, something is wrong with you. Plain and simple. Philip K. Dick wrote a book by the name of “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Well, I can’t answer that, but these dolls do in fact dream of strangling you with piano wire. I’m not suggesting that you have to have full blown automatonophobia (fear of dummies, and wax or animatronic figures), you should at least be wary around them.
I have nothing against puppets. Kermit the frog, not creepy, Howdy Doody, fucking evil … and it has nothing to do with the fact he’s a ginger. Look at that face. The stupid grin, the oversized cheeks, the faux honest eyes, I’m not fooled, you’re evil! I would have a beer with Kermit … I would throw a molotov at Howdy.
The first doll to creep me out was of course Chucky. I am not easy to scare nowadays. However, back when I was a wee little child, every little crash or bang would make my jump 5 feet in there air. My dad though it would be funny to have me watch “Child’s Play” at the tender age of 9 … bad idea. Two years later I would watch “Silence of the Lambs” and would handle that better than “Child’s Play”. This movie would haunt me for years. Then when I was a little older and little wiser, I sat down and watched it again. I realized something in that second viewing. I realized that I hated horror movies. Not because they were scary, they weren’t. But because of the characters that inhabit the worlds. Their purpose is plain. They are there to die to prove that our protagonist faces a dangerous situation. There-in lies the disconnect for me. I can’t put myself into the world because I don’t want to put myself in that world. I know there are wonky physics in Die Hard movies, I know that there is no IMF, I know that there are no space wizards with laser swords, but that doesn’t matter. I can remember growing up thinking “Man it would be so cool if I were a Jedi”. I never once though “Wow, how cool would it be to be a cop that gets killed by a possessed toy.” The other thing I noticed in the second viewing of “Child’s Play” is that no one must have played soccer as a kid. The way to defeat Chucky? Stand in the open and keep your eyes open, when he charges, go for the field goal. But no, there is always a warehouse that he can drop down from.
Ventriloquism seems to be making a sort of comeback. I place the blame squarely on Jeff Dunham. I don’t think he’s funny at all, but I respect him for two reasons. Number one, any standup comic, with the exception of Carlos Mencia, gets my respect for doing what they do. To write material cold and then perform it without knowing if its good or not is terrifying. So Dunham gets props from me for just being up there. The other reason I’m ok with him is that his dolls are not creepy looking. In the clips I’ve been tied down and forced to watch, I’ve never once thought “That Doll is going to stab him in the throat” … I just merely wished it.
Still not convinced they are creepy? Well here’s some more pictures …
… each one more evil than the last.
THE ANSWER: Ventriloquism gets its origin in religion. The ventriloquist would use their ability to pretend to speak to the dead. They outright throw their voice, but they would make a guttural sound and then interpret that in their normal speaking voice. So here we have an ability that owes its origin to lying and speaking to dead things and then adapted to dummies. This whole profession is starting to look like evil. Sorry guys, I think I hurt more than I helped anyone getting over this fear. Oh well. Maybe we can all go to group therapy together.