Automatonophobia
OK. I admit it. I’m automatonophobic.
I don’t think I have many irrational fears. I don’t like snakes, and am certainly a bit frightened of them, but there’s nothing irrational about that. They’re nasty and likely to be poisonous. I don’t like slugs either, especially when they eat things in my garden. They’re unpleasant but easy to deal with and I’m not at all scared of them. Likewise spiders and insects.
But ventriloquists’ dummies give me nightmares every time.
When I was a little boy my grandfather took me to the Spanish City in Whitley Bay. There was an amusement arcade there and one of the attractions was thing called The Laughing Sailor. You put a penny in the slot and a hideous automaton – very similar to the dummy a ventriloquist might use, except in mock-nautical attire – began to lurch backwards and forwards, flailing its arms, staring maniacally and emitting a loud mechanical cackle that was supposed to represent a laugh. The minute it started doing its turn I burst into tears and ran screaming out of the building. I’ve hated such things ever since.
The anxiety that these objects induce has now been given a name: automatonophobia, which is defined as “a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of ventriloquist’s dummies, animatronic creatures or wax statues”. Abnormal? No way. They’re simply horrible.
I’m clearly not the only one who thinks so, because there was an article in The Independent a few years ago by Neil Norman that exactly expressed the fear and loathing I feel about these creepy little dolls. Feature films including Magic and Dead of Night, and episodes of The Twilight Zone and Hammer House of Horror have taken it further by playing with the idea that a ventriloquist’s dummy has been possessed by some sort of malign power which uses it to wreak terror on those around.
We’re not talking about a benign wooden doll like Pinocchio who metamorphoses into a real boy; we’re talking about a ghastly staring-faced mannequin that is brought to life by its operator, the ventriloquist, by inserting his hand up its backside. The dummy never looks human, but can speak and displays some human traits, usually nasty ones. The essence of a ventriloquist act is to generate the illusion that one is watching two personalities sparring with each other when in reality the two voices are coming from the same person. Schizophrenia here we come.
It must be very clever to be able to throw your voice, but I always had the nagging suspicion that ventriloquists use dummies to express the things they find it difficult to say through their own mouth, and so to give life to their darkest thoughts.
Best of all the attempts to realise the sinister potential of this relationship in a movie is the “Ventriloquist’s Dummy” episode, directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, in Dead of Night, the 1945 portmanteau that some regard as Britain’s greatest horror film. Here is the part that tells the tale of Michael Redgrave’s ventriloquist being sweatily possessed by the spirit of his malevolent dummy, Hugo. It’s old and creaky, but I find it absolutely terrifying.
So what is it about these man-child mannequins – they are always male – that makes them so creepy? First, there is their appearance: the mad, swivelling, psychotic eyes beneath arched eyebrows and that crude parody of a mouth (with painted teeth) that opens and shuts with a mechanical sound like a trap. Then there are the badly articulated limbs, like those of a dead thing. When at rest, their eyes remain open, their mouths fixed in a diabolic grimace. Moreover, with their rouged cheeks, lurid red lips and unnatural eyelashes, all ventriloquist’s dummies look like the badly embalmed corpses of small boys. And they always end up sitting on the knee of a horrible pervert. Necrophilia and paedophilia all in one sick package. Yuck.
Worst of all, perhaps, is the voice. The high-pitched squawk that emerges is one of the most unpleasant sounds a human being can make. Even if you find it tolerable when you know that it comes from the ventriloquist, the last thing you want is the dummy to start talking on its own.
I started writing this with the cathartic intention of exorcising the demon that appears whenever I see one of these wretched things. It didn’t work. However, I have now decided to take my mind off this track with a change of thread. Here’s a little quiz. I wonder if anyone can spot the connection between this post and the history of cosmology?
Alternatively, if you’re brave, you could try a bit of catharsis of your own and reveal your worst phobias through the comments box…
In the Dark 
October 25, 2009 at 1:48 pm
You’re not supposed to spread the phobia!
That was a very creepy film clip, though. I’d guess the same feelings are not evoked puppets, or possibly marionettes.
I seem to have a phobia of heights. Interestingly, not heights achieved in an airplane, however. Just standing upon something, with a long fall beneath you.
October 25, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Sorry if I spread the phobia – it wasn’t my intention to do that I can assure you!
I’m also a bit scared of heights (or more accurately edges where I might fall off). I think that’s just part of a general tendency to be a bit dizzy from time to time.
October 25, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Ken Dodd had a ventriloquist’s act in which he would ask his dummy, emphasising all the consonants that would be impossible to articulate with ventriloquism,
“Would you like some bread and butter with a bottle of beer, or a glass of lemonade?”
The dummy replied,
“Lemonade.”
As for the quiz, you wrote, “the mad, swivelling, psychotic eyes beneath arched eyebrows and that crude parody of a mouth (with painted teeth) that opens and shuts with a mechanical sound like a trap. Then there are the badly articulated limbs, like those of a dead thing.”
Is that a description of a famous cosmologist?
If that’s not the answer, perhaps Dead of Night was the film that inspired Fred Hoyle, Tommy Gold and Hermann Bondi to develop the Steady-State theory. The film ends with the same scene as it began, suggesting an infinite cycle.
October 25, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Bryn,
I remember it as “shandy”. The Diddy Men were also very scary. Fortunately they don’t seem to exist on Youtube. Some scouser probably knicked them.
However, the cosmology connection is correct. I heard Hermann Bondi tell the story of how they all went to see the movie in Cambridge and it gave them the idea of the Steady State cosmology. Whether that’s what actually happened I don’t know – memories are notoriously unreliable. Dead of Night does indeed go around in a loop like a recurring dream. The wikipedia page for the movie also gives details of other films involving the ventriloquist dummy idea.
Peter
October 25, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Peter,
Yes, you may be right: Ken Dodd’s dummy said “Shandy”.
I too can remember Hermann Bondi telling the story about the film and the Steady State theory. It was at a R.A.S. discussion meeting, perhaps one paying tribute to Fred Hoyle.
October 25, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Can computers scent fear in the user?
October 25, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Only if they run Windows.
October 27, 2009 at 6:08 pm
It upsets me that you don’t like snakes. They aren’t nasty and from memory only two species are poisonous and they won’t do you any harm if you don’t eat them.
Pedantry aside, you live in the UK. Almost all of our snakes are non-venomous and they are beautiful without exception.
M.
October 27, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Mary,
I too like snakes (and have even touched a venomous one). There is something fascinating about a tubular creature with beautiful markings. But it does have to be said that almost 95% of human fatalities caused by animals each year are due to snakebite.
Ireland has no snakes, supposedly due to St Patrick but I’d like to see the geo-evolutionary explanation. In Britain we have the adder, the grass snake and, in a small region of Hampshire, its relative the smooth snake. None of these is an aggressive species and only the adder is venomous. It is also the world’s hardiest snake, being the only species found in Scotland and (elsewhere in Europe) north of the Arctic circle. Adult humans should survive an adder bite quite easily, although it is well to go to hospital and dogs and children who are bitten are at risk.
If you are given the choice between either an adder bite or an injection of antivenin then you should opt for the snakebite, because the risk of being allergic to antivenin is greater than the risk from an adder bite. But, of course, if you are bitten by an adder then you should always accept antivenin (unless you know that you are allergic to it). Translating those statements into inequalilties among probabilities is an exercise that nicely teaches the role of conditioning information.
Anton
October 28, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Anton,
I’ll try to remember that next time I’m bitten by an adder…
I suspect that the lack of snakes in Ireland is the result of geology rather than Christianity. No species of snake has ever (to my knowledge) managed to cross water to colonise a new area. New Zealand, for example, is also free of endemic snakes. Land bridges to Ireland certainly did exist but since then we’ve had an ice age which would have killed any snakes that were there. With the Irish Sea as a chilly barrier I doubt any snakes would have attempted the crossing after the ice receeded.
M.
October 28, 2009 at 5:37 pm
I wonder if either of you like snakes enough to carry them around under your clothes?
Is that a python in your trousers, or are you just pleased to see me? Oh, it is a python…
October 28, 2009 at 7:36 pm
I’m sure people have brought many snakes to Ireland over the years against their will. I think they just don’t like it there.
October 28, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Mary,
Interesting that three species of snake made it across the Dover-Calais land bridge but none across to Ireland (although it’s just possible that the adder was in Britain before the last ice age and managed to tough it out).
The yellow-bellied seasnake is found in the open ocean and has evolved from Australian terrestrial species. But I don’t think seasnakes have ever evolved back into land snakes, so they are not responsible for the dispersion of land snakes that we observe.
Peter: I like snakes TOO MUCH to carry them around under my clothes…
Anton
October 29, 2009 at 6:53 pm
I realise I should post a slight correction here. I like one kind of automaton, and that’s the cellular type.
November 3, 2009 at 1:52 am
I am definitely an automatonophobic. I couldn’t even bring myself to watch that clip, although my fear is mostly wax figures. I have no idea how this fear started. I went to a wax museum at age 6, and had a great time. No scarring memories. All of a sudden, around the age of 10 I am suddenly terrified to be in the same room with them.
November 4, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Anton,
Snakes in Britain probably did come over before the ice age but, unlike the mainland, Ireland was entirely covered by ice (I think…) so the snakes would have no warm pockets to escape to.
M
November 4, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Peter
In contrast to the iceage, Irish snakes today can escape to the warm pockets of Norwegians.
M.
November 17, 2009 at 9:40 pm
I am automatonophobic. Yey there is actually a name for it.
I probably started getting the fear when I was younger and started watching movies like Child’s Play.
Since I never see dummies and things like that in real life I never really noticed the fear. But I would never watch movies with dummies/wax figures in it.
Then a few months ago I went to a store in the mall (I’m 18) and saw a dummy on the floor…I ran out screaming. My friend had no problem with the doll, so I figured that I had to have some sort of fear towards it.
Now when I look back it is more obvious to me. I am the one that can’t go to haunted houses EVER because I am terrified of the figures. I was never able to sleep if there was a porcelin doll in the room. And so many other things.
I’m glad to know this is a legit fear 🙂
And I know nothing about snakes.
February 5, 2010 at 7:15 pm
Wow, never knew there was a name for this! I definitely have it, but I’m not really bothered that much by ventriloquist dummies or wax figures. The things that freak me out most are those hideous animatronic things people like to put out at Christmas.
My friend wanted one one year, so I went with her to the mall, and she took me into a store FULL of those things. Everywhere I looked things were moving, and I got more and more antsy until, finally, I turned around and saw Santa and Mrs Claus in bed, just…….breathing! I had to get out at that point. My friend still teases me about it to this day lol
Also very creepy are those extremely realistic looking infant dolls with the glassy eyes.
February 6, 2010 at 10:15 am
More modern things don’t bother me much, but those Victorian dolls are truly horrible.
I used to have an electrical Santa Claus that said ho-ho-ho and dropped its trousers. It wasn’t at all frightening.
February 12, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Yeah, I have to agree about the Victorian dolls….ugh!
LOL Your Santa sounds hilarious!
But seriously, how could anyone be scared of this guy?
May 31, 2010 at 8:31 am
I have this fear too D:
Idk if it’s as severe as you, but mostly like in Disneyland, i get really creeped out by them & especially the Crocodile in Fantasmic, it’s HUGE & so creepy in the night in dark water omg my nightmares lol >_<
December 27, 2010 at 3:19 am
People give me a lot of crap about my automatonophobia. It’s one of those phobias that people tend to not understand. It’s easy to understand a fear of spiders, snakes, etc.. A fear of dolls, mannequins and such is stranger to people. My worst fear is dolls, especially the kind with eyelids that move. To a person that doesn’t have this fear, it is impossible to understand the terror it provokes. At one point, I lived with my grandparents. My grandmother had an extensive doll collection. I can’t even describe how traumatizing that experience was. Anyway, just saying, I totally understand. Some people think that you mean that you’re just kind of creeped out by dummies and the like, but no. It is a full-blown, real and serious phobia. I wish more people would understand that.
August 22, 2011 at 2:36 am
I have suffered most of my life with my phobia thinking I was alone.. So, it was comforting to know that if I am crazy, I am not alone! Thank you for your blog.
I have this incredible fear of statues, especially life-size and larger. Heck, even a photo of Michelangelo’s David freaks me out!!! ( Those dead eyes)
Whether in color or plain white makes no difference, they are scary to me. I think color just makes them worse.
I was a kid when my aunt wanted to “cure'” me of this. She actually sent me to a grotto where there is a cave with life-sized color statues all in positions of the stations of the cross. ( imagine, the passion of Christ in statues, blood and all.)
I have a difficult time whenever there is a visit to a museum. I try to be brave, but cannot be in the building for very long. I cannot be surrounded by the dead eyes looking back at me.
I came across your blog because I was becoming concerned about my fears. It is now affecting my work.
This past week, In the course of my work, I encountered a room full of Victorian dolls placed on several tables and I could not take another step forward I was frozen with fear! They truly are creepy when clustered like that.
Hopefully one day I will find a cure. Again, thank you for showing me that there are others out there and It is not so strange.
September 23, 2011 at 6:07 pm
Sorry to pull up an old thread. I just found it. But I, too, am automatonophobic. For some reason, however, ventriloquists’ dummies don’t bother me. I can see the person operating it. It’s the machines that FREAK me out. I love theme parks but when they have robotic animals that move their heads from side to side, they scare me. Or people moving a limb or head. They scare me more than going 60 mph and going upside down on a roller coaster. I love that.
I also hate the Rainforest Cafe. That damn stage with the animals. I always have to sit with my back facing the stage so they don’t disrupt my meal.
Thanks for reading this rant, and sorry again for digging this up.
October 18, 2011 at 6:37 pm
I am also automatonophobic. I know exactly where my fear came from. When I was very young, we went to the drive-in movies. Being as young as I was, I’m sure my parents thought I would be sleeping before the second movie. I was not. The movie was ‘Magic’. Ever since then, I have had the fear of ventriloquists’ dummies. When I became an adult, I searched and searched for the movie to watch it again. I was hoping that watching it again as an adult would make me see that the fear I had was ridiculous. That did NOT work! I think it may have made it worse. It’s very comforting to know that there are many more people that feel the same way I do. I also get picked on by family and friends for having this phobia, but have learned to take it as a joke.
January 22, 2012 at 10:15 am
[…] a ventriloquist who is gradually possessed by his evil dummy which came up in a post I did about Automatonophobia some time […]
February 12, 2015 at 4:50 pm
hello, fellow automatonaphobe. I hear you and completely agree. Mine is not only the fear of the weird creepy looking dummies, and back to your “animated corpse” comment, Zombies really really really freak me out. However what really gets me in a cold sweat are mannequins in shops or the worst place in the world “The Natural History Museum”. I have also never set foot in Madame Tusauds and never intend to.
Has anyone else been in a shop looking at clothes, you look up and there it is the mannequin staring with vacant eyes. my palms go sweaty my heart races, and I back away slowly before I realise what I am doing. I know that the mannequin hasn’t moved and that I just didn’t notice it but it almost feels as if it purposefully snuck up on me.
I also understand the comment about being picked on. although I always feel that this is jokey I do get asked what I would do if I met a zombie wax work.
I have no idea where this came from, as I can’t remember any 1 defining moment I even have memories of playing, as a child, around a natural history museum and enjoying it. So who knows. My main worry with my phobia is, that if I ever have children, how will I take them to museums without transferring my fear to them?
I am also glad to see that lots of people have this fear.
September 4, 2015 at 12:10 am
I thought it would be interesting to give you how i got my fear of puppets. A show called Mr.Meaty. It used to be on Nickelodeon and you will be disturbed to hear it is made for kids! i cant get past 5 minutes of it without getting too scared. I also got this fear from Goosebumps Night of the Living Dummy audiotape. I had always wondered why it had scared me so much. i went back and watched mr.meaty and realized i had pupaphobia/automotonophobia. Then everything started to make sense on why i got scared by these lifeless creatures. When i see one i have the sense im being watched the rest of the day. I also have a small panic attack, and i get really nervous. I have never really had a fear of the fact that it may be a spirit. i think my fear is just intwined in my imagination, and thinking puppets are scary is just something my brain does to play tricks on me. I have never really had a good explanation like you to say why i am scared by them. maybe its my highly active imagination, mixed with childhood fears. Im glad other people have this fear though.
June 6, 2022 at 12:05 pm
[…] Michael Redgrave) who is gradually possessed by his evil dummy which came up in a post I did about Automatonophobia many moons […]