Doll Movies

The top 30 scary doll movies including films with creepy ventriloquist dummies, killer puppets and evil toys. In real life, a doll is a cute plaything and a lovable childhood companion, but in horror movies dolls are always crazed lunatics and blood-thirsty serial killers who are just biding their time until they can murder you in your sleep.

1. Trilogy of Terror (1975)

This is a horror anthology film and the final segment, “Amelia” concerns a woman who receives a Zuni Fetish Doll as a present. The doll itself is unforgettable, with wild black hair, razor-sharp teeth and a spear in its hand. It comes with a scroll claiming that the doll contains the actual spirit of a Zuni hunter named “He Who Kills”. When the Zuni doll comes to life and attacks the woman, she is in a life or death struggle. Without question, this is the best scary doll movie ever made. It was based on a short horror story by Richard Matheson called “Prey”.

2. Child’s Play (1988)

The Chucky doll became a horror icon and this is the film that started it all. A young boy receives a doll as a gift, but it is possessed by the ghost of a serial killer nicknamed “The Lakeshore Strangler” and it goes on a slasher-style rampage. The movie spawned several sequels. Bride of Chucky is probably the most fun, but Child’s Play 2 and Curse of Chucky are the scariest.

3. Dead Silence (2007)

This movie features a downright creepy ventriloquist’s doll named “Billy” that will send shivers down your spine. When it came out in theaters, Dead Silence got bad reviews, but it is actually one of the best horror movies released in recent years. Best bit: The poem. “Beware the stare of Mary Shaw. She had no children, only dolls. If you see her in your dreams, make sure you never ever scream, or she’ll cut your tongue out at the seam”

4. Dolly Dearest (1992)

A young girl named Jessica finds a cute doll and it becomes her constant companion. However, the doll is possessed by a malicious evil spirit and before long, all hell breaks loose.

5. Pinocchio’s Revenge (1996)

A woman accidentally brings a Pinocchio puppet home from work. Her daughter takes a liking to the puppet and wants to keep it. Unfortunately for all concerned, the puppet is possessed by the ghost of a dead boy and it convinces the girl to cut its strings. Finally free, it embarks on a murderous rampage, pushing her friend in front of a bus and trying to kill anyone that knows her.

6. Annabelle (2014)

In this sequel to The Conjuring, Annabelle is a creepy doll that is possessed by a satanic murdering cult member who dies as she is holding it. The doll becomes a portal host for the evil spirit of this deceased maniac. The movie is loosely based on a supposedly true story. However, in real life, the doll was just a normal-looking Raggedy Ann Doll.

7. The Boy

An old married couple hire a young woman to babysit their son. However, the woman is shocked to discover that their son is just a life-like porcelain doll, but the couple treat it as if it’s alive.

8. Dolls (1987)

A group of people stop by a mansion during a storm and discover two magical toy makers, and their collection of dolls. The dolls in this movie are possessed by immortal souls cursed by witches and forced to pay for their crimes by being imprisoned in these toys. So, of course, they go around killing people in the most brutal ways.

9. Robert The Doll

After Paul and Jenny part company with their sinister housekeeper Agatha, the disgruntled former employee gives a vintage doll called Robert to their son Gene. Soon after Agatha’s departure, strange events begin plaguing the household. Furniture is vandalized, objects are thrown around and maniacal giggles echo through the house in the middle of the night. But nobody believes Gene when he claims Robert is to blame for the disturbances. This is based on the true ghost story of Robert the Doll.

10. Dead of Night (1945)

The final segment of this British horror anthology movie stars Michael Redgrave as a ventriloquist whose dummy may or may not be alive. The dummy is malevolent and frightening as hell.

11. Tales From the Hood (1995)

This is another horror anthology movie and one of the segments is about a bunch of black voodoo dolls who come to life and take their revenge on a racist old man.

12. The Twilight Zone: Living Doll

This is an episode of the original 1960s Twilight Zone called “Living Doll”. A young girl is eager to show off her new present, a talking doll called “Talky Tina”, which repeats “My name is Talky Tina and I love you very much!” Of course, the doll turns out to be a murderous maniac and tries to kill the little girl’s abusive father.

13. Goosebumps: Night of the Living Dummy

14. Finders Keepers (2014)

This is a TV movie, made for the SyFy Channel. A woman and her 9-year old daughter move into a new house. The little girl finds a weird-looking doll under the floorboards and instantly falls in love with it. As time goes on, she becomes obsessed with the doll and dead bodies start turning up. What they don’t realize is that the house was once the scene of a horrible murder in which the 10-year old son of the previous tenants killed his entire family.

15. Night Gallery: The Doll

A British Colonel receives a hideous-looking doll in the mail and he decides to give it to his adopted daughter.

16. May

A lonely young woman is desperate for human interaction and decides to make a doll so it can be her new best friend.

17. Demonic Toys

A bunch of evil toys attack people in an abandoned warehouse.

18. Puppet Master (1989)

19. Attack Of The Beast Creatures (1985)

A group of people survive a shipwreck only to wash up on an island inhabited by a race of tiny vicious doll creatures who attack them. This is one of my favorite BAD horror movies. The acting is terrible, the direction is even worse and the plot is non-existent, but the dolls are actually seriously creepy. They stalk the people in the jungle, scuttling through the undergrowth and standing in the branches of trees.

20. The Twilight Zone 2002: The Collection

A young woman babysits a little girl who has a collection of dolls. She keeps them locked up in her room, but when she opens the cabinet, one of the dolls gets loose.

21. Magic (1978)

Magic stars Anthony Hopkins as a ventriloquist with a creepy dummy named Fats.

22. Ragdoll

A teenage boy uses voodoo to get revenge against those responsible for his grandmother’s death and calls upon a dark spirit that possesses a ragdoll and turns it into a murderous demon.

23. The Twilight Zone: The Dummy

An alcoholic ventriloquist has a dummy named Willie and he is convinced that Willie is coming to life. Is he going out of his mind or is Willie actually trying to do away with him?

24. Doll Graveyard (2005)

Doll Graveyard features four evil dolls – an African warrior, a German soldier, a baby and a samurai. An abusive father forces his daughter, Sophia, to bury the dolls in the backyard. She accidentally falls into the hole and breaks her neck, so the father just buries her with the dolls. Years later, a new family move into the house and discover the dolls in the garden.

25. Monsters: Holly’s House

A children’s TV show called “Holly’s House” stars a large remote control doll named Holly. The woman who controls Holly starts to believe that the doll has a mind of its own. Needless to say, Holly starts becoming homicidal.

26. Bride of Chucky (1998)

In Bride of Chucky, the murderous little doll gets a girlfriend. After an argument, Chucky kills her and, using a voodoo spell, puts her soul into a female doll.

27. Devil Doll (1964)

A ventriloquist and hypnotist named The Great Vorelli has an amazing dummy called Hugo.

28. Poltergeist (1982)

Although it is only onscreen for a few minutes, the scary clown doll in Poltergeist traumatized a generation of kids when the movie first came out. Whenever the subject of “scary clowns” or “creepy dolls” comes up, this is the one most people remember.

29. SAW (2004)

Saw had a mysterious evil doll by the name of Jigsaw that would appear to captives on video. Even today is still seen as a popular item during Halloween season.

30. The Simpsons

In the episode “Treehouse of Horror III”, Homer buys a Krusty Doll from a mysterious shop full of cursed items. When he brings it home, the doll tries to kill him several times. Eventually a repairman discovers that it was all because the switch on the doll’s back was set to Evil.

In The Simpsons episode, “The Ziff Who Came to Dinner”, there was a parody of killer doll horror movies. A movie called “The Re-Deadening” features a doll named Baby Button-Eyes that tells children to kill their parents. The doll is evil because its buttons came from the trousers of a psychotic killer.