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Horror/Scary: September 21, 2016 Issue [#7871]

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Horror/Scary


 This week: Toys that terrorize
  Edited by: Arakun the twisted raccoon Author IconMail Icon
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Table of Contents

1. About this Newsletter
2. A Word from our Sponsor
3. Letter from the Editor
4. Editor's Picks
5. A Word from Writing.Com
6. Ask & Answer
7. Removal instructions

About This Newsletter

Quote for the week: I could never be on stage on my own. But puppets can say things that humans can't say.
~ Nina Conti


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Letter from the editor

What was your favorite toy as a kid? Most of us had a doll or stuffed animal that shared our adventures during the day and slept with us at night. Toys invoke pleasant childhood memories, which is why evil or cursed toys are so frightening.

A horror story based on an ugly cursed statue would be frightening, but the appearance of the statue would probably give you an immediate clue that there is something wrong about it. But what if the cursed object was a cute baby doll or a fuzzy teddy bear? Because of our childhood memories of those toys, we trust them. For the same reasons we don't expect children to be evil, we don't expect toys to be evil either.

Some evil toys, like Chuckie from the Child's Play movies are obviously twisted, but remember Talking Tina from the Twilight Zone episode of the same name? She was a typical cute little doll with curly hair, round face, and big eyes. She even had a sweet little voice, which made the words that came out of her mouth all the more frightening.

Annabelle, from the movie of the same name started out as an ordinary doll, but a devil worshipper cursed her by spilling her own blood on the doll's face. Like many other evil toys, she can't seem to be destroyed. Some cursed toys have been burned, chopped up, or thrown in the sea, and they still come back.

Voodoo dolls have long been used in horror stories as a surrogate for the person an evil character wishes to harm. The voodoo doll usually needs to contain some part of the real person such as hair or fingernails. Voodoo dolls are usually shown as primitive cloth or wooden figures, but what if a beautiful doll had lifelike hair that was actually the hair of the intended victim?

Ventriloquist's dummies have a creepy quality even when they aren't in horror stories. There's something unsettling about a little wooden toy that seems to talk in such a lifelike way. As Nina Conti said, "Puppets can say things that humans can't say." The ventriloquist can use his dummy to say the things he doesn't want to say himself, but what if the puppet decides to speak for itself?

Billy, the freaky little puppet from the Saw movies is only the mouthpiece of his puppetmaster, the Jigsaw Killer, but the killer is more frightening because of Billy. We can only imagine the depraved mind that would speak through that strange little thing.

Something to try: Write a horror story that involves an evil doll or toy.



Editor's Picks

Sam and Katie Forever Open in new Window. (18+)
A girl gets a gift from a creepy ex-boyfriend. Writer's Cramp Winner 2/26.
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A boy is snatched away and taken to the tower.
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Enriqueta Martí i Ripollés Open in new Window. (18+)
The Witch Doctor of Barcelona
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#2090714 by Not Available.


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The Photograph of Carolina Stump Open in new Window. (18+)
A writer finds an old photograph and discovers a horrifying secret...
#1149464 by W.D.Wilcox Author IconMail Icon

 
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