:focal(1024x683:1025x684)/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/85/b2/85b2d79d-92a0-4e4c-8950-df54834b90cc/461381921_1060709736056936_2991101667800301079_n.jpg)
The theme of this year’s spooky puppet contest at the History Center of Olmsted County is “Circus After Dark.”
Olmsted County Historic Center
With Halloween approaching, it’s time to get into the spooky spirit. And what better way to do that than by looking at photos of creepy vintage dolls?
The Olmsted County Historic Center in Rochester, Minnesota, is once again hosting its annual Creepy doll competition. The competition is back for its sixth year and puts the spotlight on the museum’s collection of terrifying toy dolls.
The theme this year is ‘Circus in the dark’. (Last year the museum hosted an interactive murder mystery.)
Curators selected eight puppets who stayed behind while the circus was in town and eventually “learned the tricks of the trade,” according to the museum’s website. One doll is a contortionist, the other an animal tamer. There is a few “Trapeze twins‘named Babette and Brisbane, as well as a clown named Roland.
A fortune teller named Madame Bell can see into the future, but she is unlikely to reveal what she knows.
“I stayed with the circus to hone my skills, and now I have seen the future of many a famous star and infamous guest,” says “Madame Bell” in a Instagram post of the museum. “I’ve seen my share of dark horrors, but I’ll only share the good, I promise. What I can say is that I see you visiting in person soon.
The terrifying figures are the centerpiece of an ongoing exhibition at the museum. They also played a starring role at the museum’s annual fundraising party on October 19 and are regularly featured at the museum’s exhibitions. social media pages.
The public is also encouraged to vote for the doll they find most terrifying online or in person, before October 31.
Museum staff started the creepy doll competition in 2019. After sharing photos of some vintage dolls online, the creepy images went viral and amassed a following of fans around the world.
The History Center of Olmsted County has more than 100 historical dolls in its collection. They date from between 1825 and 1985 and all have a direct link to the history of the province.
Other museums are also getting in on the spooky action with their own exhibits and interactive experiences. During the month of October, six dolls from the mid-19th to early 20th centuries are visible at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson, Mississippi. In Oregon, Bend Ghost Tours organizes a creepy doll treasure hunt featuring five dolls looking for new houses to haunt. The Hancock Historical Museum in Findlay, Ohio, runs his own business creepy doll contestand there is even one Creepy Doll Museum in Ontario, Canada.
Throughout the year, chilling chrysalises sometimes pop up in unexpected places, like the beaches of Texas and beyond The Mississippi and Ohio rivers.
If you are afraid of dolls, this may bother you pediophobiathat falls under the broader umbrella fear of humanoid figures known as automatonophobia.
Dolls have been around for a long time depicted as nerve-wracking in popular culture. One of the earliest known films about creepy dolls, The doll’s revengedebuted in 1907, per Sandra Millsa literary scholar at the University of Hull in England.
Why are dolls so scary? Their horror “lies in their uncanny resemblance to something inherently non-human,” Mills writes for the Conversation.
“Their faces, whether porcelain or plastic, mimic ours and are thus imbued with an eerily creepy hue,” she adds.
