apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

i have a framed bat that my grandma bought me for graduation. (i love my family... soooo kooky) but i thought it was super creepy at first. now i love her. she looks really cute in my room. my friends even think so which is a shock cuz theyre affraid of everything.

I don't like any kind of decor that I can imagine is looking at me! Dolls, taxidermy, statues...

I found a box of farrah fawcet doll heads once... I lined them up in the freezer. They made me laugh every time I opened it.

I never had a problem with dolls until I was in my early 20's and forced to spend the night at a friend's house. The guest room was entirely lined with her mother's porcelain dolls collection. Needless to say, 200 set of eyes staring at me kept me from getting a good night's sleep!

I collected porcelain dolls when I was younger and had about 15 of them pointed at my bed on the opposite wall, They were cute. Regular dolls don't scare me... but random doll heads scattered everywhere? THAT creeps me out.

This reminds me of an episode of Seinfeld where George's fiance had a doll collection, and one of the dolls looked exactly like his much-hated, overbearing mother.

Ok, the disembodied heads sitting in teacups? That's freaking CREEPY.

I despise dolls, they freak me out, particularly the "vintage" (read: battered nearly beyond recognition) ones.

I have a Pee Wee Herman doll that freaks my friends' kids out. I think he's darling. ;)

Anything that resembles humans but not exactly tend to freak people out, e.g. dolls, puppets, clowns, mimes, masks.

There's this store in Philly that I think sells antiques. The entire window is filled with creepy porcelain dolls. I mean, they are stacked on top of each other. I once had to walk past the store at night and something about the way the light from the street lamp bounced off all those beady glass eyes made it seem like they were watching me go by. Ugh. I will never buy my hypothetical children realistic dolls with glass eyes.

When I was little I used to torment my sister with troll dolls...she's 22 now and still scared of them! I was a wonderful sister.....

Usually one doll (unless its those awful antique baby dolls with the glass eyes - shudder!) isn't enough. It takes a few dolls to really rachet up the creep factor. That said, they easily outdo all other decor for their ability to inspire terror.

@Jenzoe: *dies* I am so stealing that idea. If I ever come across a box of Farrah Fawcett doll heads (or any doll heads, for that matter). In the freezer they will go!, because that's awesome.

*shudder*

When I was twelve, I used to collect porcelain dolls - and yeah, they were on a shelf at the end of my bed, facing me.

Then I saw the X-Files episode Chinga, and, well, that was the end of that. They STILL creep me out - like slowdown said, it's the Uncanny Valley thing.

I can't throw away the shaved and otherwise tampered with Barbies for fear of offending them, but I can't look at them, either. It's completely irrational. I have bags of them in the closet. There's an ancient part of my brain that prays they're not pissed at me.

Where did they come from, you ask? It just seems like they've always been there.

The ultimate in creepy, yet a totally cool and creative reinvention of Barbie:

http://www.margauxlange.com/index.html

Harlequins are pure evil...and for some reason it's considered cute when they're sitting on a swing in the window. Seeing this in somebody's house would make me reconsider a friendship.

Porcelain dolls for the most part - I think it's the face. Taxidermy for sure - I always feel guilty though it wasn't me who shot it just for fun. And after staying at an in-law's house, stuffed animal cats - she had some very realistic ones that I swear moved during the night - LOL.

I agree with another commenter, it isn't dolls perse, but just doll HEADS, super creepy.

Speaking of other scary things, my husband is terrified of clowns, and I collected them as a child...it is SO easy to scare him!

Years ago, I was asked at the last minute to host a Halloween party for my Jaycees chapter. While shopping for decorations at Dollar Tree, I came across NSYNC bobbleheads for 50 cents each. I bought one of each, removed the heads, added a little fake blood and lined them up to make a creepy display for my haunted bathroom decor.

Dolls, clowns.....they are all EVIL! hee!

My hands are shaking...

Taxidermy-yuck!

jenzoe, I would never keep those Farrah heads because who in the heck had that box of heads in the first place?? My mother had all my dolls hanging on the walls in my room. During the day it was no problem, but at night, it would take me forever to fall asleep.

I think dolls are pretty creepy new or old. I used to work in a toy store and because I'm a girl they made me work in the doll department because "nobody wants to buy trains from a girl."

Also, jenzoe - awesome.

Mark Montano has a project in his Big-Ass Book Of Crafts that involves filling doll heads with plaster and painting them to look bronzed. I think it's the best idea ever--creepy paper weights for everyone!

dolls must all DIE. i had one as a child. it moved around the room. it watched me. sometimes when i had to move it (it sat on my toybox), it pushed back at me, like it was trying to shrug me off. pure evil. and animal heads on walls, statues, even some mannequins.

There's a house on my street that has a huge front window. The curtains are closed, but alone in front of the curtains, facing out at the street, stands A CREEPY DOLL. WTF??? I screamed the first time I saw it.

Also the house is across from an elementary school.... so the doll stares at the children.

LOL. I love exploring my favorite antiques store at least once a week...
but I always instinctively cringe when I'm walking onto the 3rd floor where a ugly battered, one-legged mannequin lurks in the corner. Its face has been painted to look like it's wide eyed and smiling but the paint is peeling old. Creepiest thing I've ever seen! It even has teeth!! Will someone please buy that thing already and get it out of there?!?

Also, it's wearing a Yankees cap.

"Anything that resembles humans but not exactly tend to freak people out, e.g. dolls, puppets, clowns, mimes, masks."

I've also known dogs to be totally freaked out by dog statues. Kinda weird the way that works.

I guess taxidermied anything has potential to give me the willies, but for some reason butterfly and moth displays under glass make me particularly sad. Not counting museums.

When I was college-age and post-college age we called them "dead babies" and we looooved having them around. Ridiculous and kitsch, especially if they're dead babies and not dolls.

For a while I had this campy mid-century picture of Jesus in a metal (tin?) frame that plugged in and there'd be a light beneath the pciture and also illuminating a not-quite halo. FUnny at firs, then disturbing as hell.

Does anyone remember the legend of the China Doll that made the rounds in the late 70's? We told that creepy story so many times that I was petrified by them then and still to this day. I too am a junk store picker and will gasp/shriek out loud if I turn a corner and find myself standing eye to eye with one!

Oh, I so wish I hadn't looked at those pictures.

I'm not clicking on those thumbnails for love nor money - no way!

When I was in my twenties, I was invited to tea with the (then) boyfriend, by his sister's friend who made special effects puppets. He was amazingly talented but very modest but he knew that we were interested in what he did so he offered to show us his studio, which had been a bedroom. As well as shwing us some of his own work, he also had one of the "Alien" models (this was around the time of the first movie) which he kept in the built-in wardrobe. We'd both read the book, seen the movie and were definitely keen to see one of the actual models, especially as it was 'life-sized'. As he went to drag it out of storage, we stood there in eager anticipation. However, at some point during its 'captivity' the long neck and head section had fallen against the inside of the door so that, when he open it, the thing lunged out, headlong across the room and stopped inches from my face. I was so dumbstruck that I didn't even flinch and, let me tell you, those jaws and that latex drool looked every bit as real 'in the flesh' as they did on screen...

Now, you might think that, that would be the kind of decor that would give me the shivers but, Hell No, It was amazing! Give me a face-off with an Alien over a room full of creepy, china dolls any day!

I like some dolls. I also like taxidermy and clowns and dog statues. And I suspect I'm not the only one...

@Jenzoe you are brilliant.

My mom has a collection of 30-40 antique cream pitchers with about 20 hallmark store ones thrown in from well meaning relatives. The entire collection seems like something you'd find in a 90-year-old woman's house after she dies. My mom is a vibrant, cool 60-something woman and her collection creeps me out.