As humans we review anything that evokes a feeling of the uncanny in us. Objects such as wax models, dolls and mannequins, of which their appearance is based on a human form, hold the impression that they could be human, which in turn causes us to react to them like another human being. Imagine being in a department store and thinking you are standing in someone’s way or accidently bump into someone. Upon turning around you have mistakenly accepted a shop mannequin for a person. With this impression, there is also an irrational expectation of this figure becoming animate, and the assumption that this will be something negative, or cause us harm in some way.

Freud also remarks:

“The uncanny effect of epileptic fits, and of manifestations of insanity, because these excite in the spectator the impression of automatic, mechanical processes at work behind the ’ordinary appearance of mental activity” Freud (1919)

This is a good example of how we can be evoked with the uncanny by a real person. The disjointed, static movements of a person in the throes of a fit is a far cry from the usual fluid grace of normal movement. It is alarming for us to see a human moving in a strange way that it frightens us. The jerking movements of the fit are reminiscent to that of a clockwork doll or figurine, and this displacement of movement makes us uncomfortable, perhaps without realizing why at the time.

Despite the concept of dolls and mannequins filling us with a sense of the uncanny, children who had dolls to play with show that children do not have a strong sense of the uncanny as adults do. Freud comments “we remember that in their early games children do not distinguish at all sharply between living and inanimate objects, and that they are especially fond of treating their dolls like live people.” It is true that we held that childhood belief that our toys came to life in the night, and were not unsettled by this, and instead perhaps wanted it to be true for the idea of having a “real” companion.” The idea of a ‘living doll’ excites no fear at all; children have no fear of their dolls coming to life, they may even desire it.” However, the film industry began to play on this concept with films such as “Chucky” making what is a symbol of childhood comfort something terrifying, and changing the way we see dolls and toys.