The Greatest Ventriloquist Episodes
Amongst the scariest things in the world in film, for me, are evil dolls.. mannequins, puppets and..Ventriloquist's Dummies.
Every time some kind of wooden or plastic doll appears in a film or series, they are alive, evil (except Toy Story) and always unbelievably frightening. I am listing my top 6 scariest Ventriloquist episodes and there are major spoiler.. so alert alert.
6
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
S01E10 - The Puppet Show
In Buffy's school a talent show is approaching and a boy, Morgan, and his dummy are one of the acts. All of a sudden students turn up dead with some organ stolen from them and it is clear that a human hand has committed the murders. Giles starts to screen the people involved in the talent show and the boy who talks to and treats his wooden dummy as if he was real becomes the immediate suspect. Buffy pursues Morgan only to find out that the Dummy is actually a demon hunter as well and is trying to stop the gruesome organ stealing monster. An episode which starts out as a scary Dummy-episode and ends up with that twist. So it is not as scary as it starts out but an excellent Ventriloquist episode.
5
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
S01E20 - And so Died Riabouchinska
I could spend a lot of time praising this particularly episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents for the sole reason of Claude Rains. There are not many actors that could even come close to the depths Claude Rains inserts in the characters he play, as villains, heroes, bit parts, fools or even invisible men he is magnificent. So obviously there is no exception here where he plays, John Fabian, a man working as a ventriloquist in a theater with his lady-dummy, Riabouchinska. One day employees of the theater finds a dead man, called Ockham, in the basement and a detective is sent there to investigate since the murder was probably committed by someone there. The detective, Krovitch, (played by none other than Charles Bronson) soon finds a connection to Fabian. When he starts to question Fabian the Dummy starts to get involved and Bronson, initially to humour Fabian, talks back revealing some hard feelings revolving Fabian's wife, manager and also connections to the dead man. When Krovich sees the act and Fabian and Riabouchinska talk and acts like lover, he realise that Fabian's mental state is slipping and he starts to dig deeper. He finds out about a young girl who disappeared years before, with an uncanny likeness to Fabian's dummy, who Fabian was deeply in love with. He reveals he had a relationship with the girl and Ockham, who now is dead, found out about that and how Fabian created a dummy in her image, tries to extort Fabian for money. Fabian kills the man afraid that his unnatural relationship with his dummy would be exposed, however this last part does not come from Fabian himself, it comes from the mouth of the reason for it all, Riabouchinska. Again, Claude Rains, if nothing else, see this episode just for his stunning performance. When he starts to cry talking about the young girl he loved so much.. well. Just watch it.
4
Twilight Zone
S03E33 - The Dummy
Jerry is a successful Ventriloquist with a drinking problem and an agent who tries to help him and his career. The reason for Jerry's heavy drinking is that he is convinced that his Dummy Willie.. is alive.. and evil. Jerry decides to start an act with a new dummy, goofy goggles, but there's someone who doesn't like that idea, Willie. When his new act is working out, Jerry locks Willie in a trunk.. but soon starts to hear Willie's voice to let him out and not to forget him. He runs up to his loge. takes Willie out and smashes him, when he calms down he sees it is not Willie he has crushed, it is his new act Goofy Goggles, and Willie sits on the sofa.. saying Jerry ' you put words in my mouth, you made me'. Later we see Jerry and Willie on stage doing their act.. only.. the Dummy now has the face of Jerry and Jerry has the face of the Dummy. Gah.. a great Twilight Zone episode, written (based on a short story) by Serling himself. Cliff Roberts plays Jerry and just as Redgrave in my next selection, he is magnificent as the panic stricken man, obsessed and convinced that his dummy is alive, and it is partly due to this great performance that what's makes it so freakish and unnerving to watch.
3
Dead of Night
Section 5
Dead of Night is a film split into five different stories, (based on a H.G. Wells story), so I'm counting that in to my list. This section of the film is about the Ventriloquist Maxwell (Michael Redgrave) and his dummy Hugo.. scariest name for a dummy btw. Maxwell is approached by another Ventriloquist, Silvester, who is intrigued by his show and Hugo the dummy shows interest in switching partners. Silvester, curious how Maxwell have made his dummy so life-like goes to his loge and sees some disturbing banter between Maxwell and Hugo, like Hugo was alive. A few weeks later Silvester saves Maxwell from a fight in a bar after Hugo insults a lady, and the day after Hugo is missing from Maxwell's room and he runs to Silvester's room to accuse him of stealing Hugo. He finds Hugo there and goes crazy with anger and shoots Silvester. Later in jail, a psychiatrist, believing Maxwell to be mentally ill, brings Hugo to Maxwell's cell to see his reaction and that visit ends with Maxwell stomping Hugo to 'death'. In the end a recovering Silvester visits the now apathetic Maxwell in the hospital only to be greeted with a familiar voice saying.. 'Silvester, I've been waiting for you.' Gah! The whole film is terrifying but this section is spine chilling, and all credit goes to Michael Redgrave who played Maxwell in the most eerie and Brilliant way.
2
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
S03E01 - The Glass Eye
This episode opens up with God himself, William Shatner, and his wift going through his recently deceased aunt Julia's possessions. When they find a glass eye hidden in a small drawer, he tells her the story of Julia, her life long loneliness and her first encounter with love. Julia leads a dull, solitary life with the occasional watching of her neighbour's son as her only social life. One night at the theater she sees the Ventriloquist act 'Max Collodi and his Dummy George', falls head over heels in love with the handsome Ventriloquist, and starts following his act all over the country. She send him letters, pleading for a meeting and Collodi timidly answers a short meeting could be possible.. When the big night arrives she spends hours getting ready with all her hopes and dreams of finally experiencing love plainly showing on her face. She trepidatiously walks in to his hotel room and sees him sitting at the table with his dummy, they talk for a few minutes and Julia's expectations are met. However, when she reaches out to touch Max's hand, he falls on the floor and she runs over to him, terrified he collapsed, she takes him in her arms and suddenly.. his head falls of.. revealing to made out of wood.. And then George the Dummy stands up and starts to talk in that beautiful voice Julia felt so seduced by. Julia, in chock, picks up one of the glass eyes that fell out and runs away from there in terror. Well, this story is just incredible. Always amazing Jessica Tandy plays Julia and Tom Conway (brother of George Sanders) plays Max in this unsettling episode with one of those brilliant twists, and yeah, did I mention Shatner is in it?
1
Tales from the Crypt
S02E10 - The Ventriloquist's Dummy
This is number one because of the two very simple reasons, the original story (written by Frank Darabont) and that it is just disturbing, bloody and terrifying. Don Rickles portrays, Ingles, an old famous Ventriloquist who has been living in reclusiveness for 15 years after a terrible fire hurt is hand and he he is now no longer performing. A young man who saw Ingles as a boy, has his whole life dreamed of being a Ventriloquist himself, receives guidance from the veteran but soon starts to suspect that the fire and killing connected to it was no accident, when a young women, whom he saw Ingles with earlier dies mysteriously. When confronted, Ingles reveals that his 'dummy' who hates women actually killed them and that the 'Dummy' is in fact his brother.. or twin brother to be exact, who never fully developed and lives, attached to the end of Ingles arm.. It is just So disturbing, I love stories like this and even more so when they end in a gory blood fest as this one does.
So yeah, there you go.
I also wanna make a special mention of the Seinfeld episode,
The Chicken Roaster, s08e08, Where Jerry and Kramer exchange apartments and Jerry is woken up by Kramer's Dummy Mr Marbles..
