Scary Dolly

Horror movies seem to have a penchant for the scary toy doll. I think it's something to do with the paradox of the plaything which little vulnerable children adore, yet with its blank staring eyes and unnerving perfection is so freaking freaky. What doesn't add up always seems to scare us. However movie makers exploit this when they take dolls and rip them up, mess up their eyes, draw on blood and scars and gore. Just google 'scary doll'!

Flickr photo

Personally, I find it difficult to do anything but laugh at the blatently scary. Blood and gore can make me feel queasy, but never in a terrified sort of way. As I have said, it's the element of the unknown and uncertainty which really makes me tick. The parts of horror movies where I shut my eyes and hide behind the cushion and the stuff of my nightmares.

Browsing through my photo albums for some inspiration, I came upon a photo taken on a family holiday a few years ago. I remembered how, visiting a market, my sister had fallen in love with a doll which cost around £100. Knowing that she would never get it, she cried and cried and consoled herself with the memory of a photograph taken of a doll. I wasn't there at the time, and when I saw the photograph later I recoiled in horror. This was not the magnificently beautiful doll I had envisaged. Sure, she was sparkly, smiley, blonde and wearing a glittery silver dress. But she was also the most frighteningly hideous doll I have ever seen.

The doll - back view. Seems cute so far, no?

Ahhhhhh! Not so scary? What's the scariest thing you've ever seen?