All the looks of killer dolls on the big screen

All right, you may not like horror. But even if you don't like it, if you are equipped with an Internet connection you will have heard of or at least come to know about M3GAN, yet another cult U.S. horror movie released in late 2022 and arriving in the rest of the world at the turn of December and January. The story concerns a doll android who, predictably, becomes too smart and starts killing people to protect her owner. The doll is devilish, true, but she is also fabulous as only true drama queens can be. The way she takes off her sunglasses as if she were Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada? Fabulous. The way she advances toward her victim with a machete in her hand fierce as a supermodel? Incredible. Her icy one-liners, her theatricality, her murderous cuteness? A mine of memes. And let's not mention how at one point he starts singing Titanium by Sia in a moment of absurd, brilliant campiness. Now, M3GAN had already become a social phenomenon by the time the trailer was released, in particular thanks to a certain creepy doll-doing dance that immediately went viral on TikTok and Twitter.

As the memes accumulated, so did interest in the film and its deadly protagonist, thanks in part to the film's ingenious marketing that populated American stadiums with "copies" of the doll doing her dance, a Twitter account in which M3GAN posted biting comments that later went viral, and even a series of mock interviews published in Dazed and The Face in which her character "stepped out" of the film's fiction to answer journalists' questions. The attention paid to the latest in a long line of killer dolls has since rekindled interest in the killer doll archetype and its subgenre of reference, leading, for example, journalists such as Joshua Lyon to point out how, in that very sub genre, the identity of killer dolls is linked to their costume. And in M3GAN's case, that costume could easily have been signed by Gucci or Prada-even if it wasn't. In general, however, the wardrobe of M3GAN, who also wears a double-breasted coat with a fur collar in the film, represents a new and modern addition to the catalog of killer dolls at the movies endowed with a distinctive look - a look that is often defined by its somewhat old-fashioned elegance. This makes us wonder, how come killer dolls in the movies are dressed so well?

Sketches and alternative outfits for M3GAN | via The New York Times

Sketches and alternative outfits for M3GAN | via The New York Times

Sketches and alternative outfits for M3GAN | via The New York Times

Sketches and alternative outfits for M3GAN | via The New York Times

Sketches and alternative outfits for M3GAN | via The New York Times

Sketches and alternative outfits for M3GAN | via The New York Times

Before speaking about M3GAN, we need to talk about its producer, James Wan, who is directly responsible for almost every creepy doll seen on our screens in recent years: from The Conjuring's Annabelle to Saw's puppet on a tricycle to Mary Shaw's puppets in the underground cult-trash Dead Silence, the Australian filmmaker possesses a declared obsession with the subgenre, so much so that he calls himself @creepypuppet on Instagram. Wan himself, who is a great lover of vintage American and non-American horror films, has created a thread of continuity between the killer dolls of the 1940s and 1950s such as the ventriloquist doll Hugo from the anthology Dead of Night (the first to have an actual doll among the antagonists) and the Living Doll episode of The Twilight Zone in which the creepy Talky Tina appeared, and those of the present day. It was from these two characters that the subgenre developed through B-Movies (there are no less than 105 films that fall into the canon from Todd Browning's The Devil's Doll shot in '36 to M3GAN) and just over thirty TV appearances between the 1960s and today, but also in literature thanks to authors such as R. L. Stine and Stephen King - although their uncanny status was more precisely defined on a theoretical level by the great and somewhat mysterious horror author Thomas Ligotti, who precisely on the image of the uncanny puppet founded many concepts of his existentialism. 

"The Ventriloquist's Dummy" segment in "Dead of Night" (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1945)

The "Living Doll" episode in "The Twilight Zone" (Richard C. Sarafian, 1963)

Magic (Richard Attenborough, 1978)

Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper, 1982)

Puppet Master (David Schmoeller, 1989)

Dolly Dearest (Maria Lease, 1991)

The "Night of the Living Dummy II" episode from the "Goosebumps" TV series (Ron Oliver, 1996)

Saw (James Wan, 2004)

Dead Silence (James Wan, 2007)

The Conjuring (James Wan, 2013)

The Boy (William Brent Bell, 2016)

This continuity has meant that our imagery is dominated by creepy dolls dressed in entirely mid-century outfits: according to what M3GAN's costume designers told The New York Times, for example, many inspirations came from some Gucci children's outfits from the 1960s while, ideally, they would have liked the doll's sunglasses to be by Prada although, to avoid having to resort to brand approval lengthening the times, they turned to New Zealand brand Minista. Going back in time, the Saw puppet, known as Billy The Puppet, wears a black three-piece suit with a red kerchief and bow tie over a white shirt in the best tradition of ventriloquist puppets also taken up by Slappy from the Goosebumps franchise and Brahms from the film The Boy; for Annabelle, on the other hand, the costume is even more vintage, a white dress with puffed sleeves from the late 1900s with a red belt held back by a red rose-the costume seems to harken directly back to Talky Tina from The Twilight Zone, who had identical puffed sleeves and belt, but over a 1950s tartan dress and a white collar. A few notable exceptions include the famous clown from Poltergeist, and recently the killer doll from Krampus. In the forgotten cult hit Magic, instead, Anthony Hopkins' ventriloquist puppet is basically the same as the others but for plot reasons, he does not wear a suit but the same clothes as his owner.

Child's Play (Tom Holland, 1988)

Child's Play 2 (John Lafia, 1990)

Child's Play 3 (Jack Bender, 1991)

Bride of Chucky (Ronnie Yu, 1998)

Seed of Chucky (Don Mancini, 2004)

Curse of Chucky (Don Mancini, 2013)

Cult of Chucky (Don Mancini, 2017)

Child's Play (Lars Klevberg, 2019)

The "Chucky" TV series (Don Mancini, 2021 - still running)

By and large, however, the movie killer dolls all derive from their two progenitors, Hugo from Dead of Night and Talky Tina from The Twilight Zone. There is one notable exception, namely the character who gave his name to the Child's Play franchise: Chucky. The most famous doll in horror cinema is not only practically responsible for the survival of the subgenre, but his entire franchise (which includes eight films and a TV series released between 1988 and 2021) is a testament to the modernization of costumes that James Wan's films would later erase. Chucky's iconic costume, in fact, is a childlike dungaree worn with a colorful striped long sleeve, a very 1980s look; but as the franchise progressed in the 1990s other characters were added to Chucky: first Tiffany, Chucky's "wife" who sports gothic and provocative outfits keeping with the late 1990s goth aesthetic of velvet chokers and black leather jackets worn alongside a wedding dress in Bride of Chucky; then there is the pivotal character of Glen/Glenda, Chucky's genderfluid offspring (we won't go into the full plot of the film) who as early as 2004 was saying onscreen: «Sometimes I feel like a boy. Sometimes I feel like a girl. Can I be both?» Glen/Glenda's genderfluid outfit has a pale androgynous face, short hair, and a total black look worn under a purple T-shirt. 

Beyond the progressivism of the Child's Play franchise, which is more unintentionally the result of a sensationalist and hyper-humorous script than of genuine social engagement, the subgenre of killer dolls in cinema is based on false expectations. In other words, creepy dolls are disturbing precisely because their looks are so old-fashioned and therefore in theory tender and reassuring but slightly out of phase with our reality and therefore uncanny or creepy. The case of M3GAN is the latest proof of this - but with something more. As Gen Z's first true killer doll, and especially as another modern monster, the Babadook, before her, M3GAN has also become an icon for the LGBTQ+ community (iconicity confirmed by an SNL sketch with Aubrey Plaza who ironically stars in the 2019 reboot of Child's Play) thanks to her attitude and especially her looks that, rather than creepily Victorian, are opulent: cashmere shrugs, designer glasses, satin bows, and a cascade of golden waves. Her wardrobe has been compared to that of the likes of Blair Waldorf and Regina George, her cool boldness has made her endless material for all sorts of memes, and as for her looks, apparently, we will see new ones very soon, as a sequel has already been announced for January 2025.