I’ve never been a doll person. When I was a child, my dolls were discarded in favor of our dogs, and my brothers and I carried them around in various toy cars and strollers. Fortunately, my parents were supporters of a small breed of dog called the Welsh Corgi. Imagine trying to fit an adult Rottweiler into a doll pram! My attitude towards dolls changed as I grew older, but instead of learning to appreciate them, I began to feel apprehensive. I blame this on my growing awareness of the horror genre and TV shows like “Tales From The Darkside” that often featured malevolent dolls. I had a friend who had one of those dolls that blinked and it completely terrified me. He always seemed to be staring at us through pale, lifeless blue orbs in his head. Watching … and waiting. Blinking but not seeing. Or was it?

In Helen Morgan’s “The Witch Doll,” the main character’s hair grows out when she brushes it. Her name is Tilda and she is a doll that exchanges souls with humans.

Dolls have been an integral part of the horror genre for many years and Hollywood has been a major exploiter of this phenomenon. There have been countless movies about the voodoo religion, in particular voodoo dolls. Although its origin dates back to identifying pressure points for use in healing, it is believed that slaves exploited the myth as a form of self-defense against ruthless slave owners. Thus the belief that a specific individual can be cursed through a voodoo doll was born and exploited. Such is the popularity of the voodoo doll myth today that tourists can buy voodoo dolls in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, the center of the voodoo religion!

A more authentic use of dolls in voodoo is the practice of nailing the doll, along with a shoe, to a tree near a cemetery. They are supposed to act as messengers between the land of the living and that of the dead. However, the myth of the voodoo doll seems to owe its origins to ancient Europe …

Pagan cults used a doll to symbolize the fertility of nature during festivals and harvests. The person who produced the doll was said to breathe life into the doll, and was considered to be a little person. Poppets were also associated with witchcraft and were often produced to cast a fertility, healing, or bonding spell on an individual. These dolls were generally made from natural products such as clay, a potato, a root or branch of a tree, a cornstalk, an apple or a lemon. Paper and wax were also used, along with fabrics that were usually filled with herbs. The doll was then used for image magic, and any action taken on the effigy would be effective for the human subject. Does it sound familiar to you? To counter the doll’s usually gruesome effects, a wax figure could cast the spell against the castor and counter witchcraft … if the evil was discovered in time!

A family sailing on a lake finds a large doll floating in the water. They rescue him and soon wish they had never seen him. Donna Lee Wallock’s “Troll Doll” is possessed by evil spirits, and it isn’t long before strange accidents and unexplained deaths surround the doll.

It seems that the dolls are usually produced in female form, but they have also replicated the male gender. The Druids’ scarecrows, corn wagons, and wicker man are all men! Scarecrows evolved due to farmers’ need to discourage birds from disturbing their crops. In 1592 they were described as: That which frightens or is intended to frighten without causing physical harm. Literally the thing that drives away crows, hence the name: scarecrow. Originally fashioned in the human shape of straw, scarecrows were dressed in clothing with hats, with faces made of fabric with stitches that provided facial features. Today, scarecrows are still used by farmers around the world. Corn dollies were hollow shapes made from the last sheaf of the crop at the end of a crop. Ancient cultures believed that once a harvest had been harvested, the corn spirit would become homeless and leave the countryside to seek a new home. The corn wagon would remain in the fields through the winter, providing shelter for the corn spirit until the new crop was planted in spring.

The Wicker Man is an icon that has appeared in modern culture. A tall humanoid form, a wicker man was traditionally woven from flexible branches, much like wicker furniture, and was generally burned at Neopagan festivals to mark spring. It sounds horrible, but fire was originally considered a form of purification, and the act of burning a human effigy was to create a messenger that would serve as a link between the community and its deity.

Popular culture has made the Wicker Man a symbol of horror. There is a famous British horror movie called The Wicker Man, which places living sacrifices to burn inside the Wicker Man during a pagan ritual. A remake of this movie, starring Nicholas Cage, is being released as of this writing. In the book “The Vampire Lestat”, one of Anne Rice’s characters describes witnessing the burning of a wicker man containing human beings during Roman times. The heavy metal band Iron Maiden recorded the title of a song “The Wicker Man”.

The main character in Jane Toombs’ “Hugger Doll” is a murderer, something the hero’s grandmother warned her about a year earlier. He once laughed at his superstitions; Now I wish I had paid more attention!

The most famous doll in the current horror genre must be Chucky, also known as Charles Lee Ray. Chucky’s creator derived his name from three notorious killers: Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswold, and James Earl Ray. Created for the horror film series “Child’s Play”, Chucky is a doll possessed by the soul of a murderer. The doll begins to kill people, and all kinds of stories have evolved around him. Eventually the doll’s face and body are mutilated, her human girlfriend turns into a killer doll named Tiffany, and the dolls manage to produce a gender-confused doll named Glen / Glenda … it’s an extremely successful franchise, and even To date there have been five Chucky Movies.

Dolls may appear human, but their characteristics and emotions are a blank sheet, waiting for our imaginations to bring them to life. Whether in movies, books or musical dolls, they are an intrinsic part of our culture. And from where I’m sitting, his future looks bright.