Creepy dolls come out of Rochester museum vault for Halloween

A century before the horror film "Child's Play" introduced us to the killer doll Chucky, creepy dolls were already a thing.

Except back then, they were just considered plain old dolls — with weird eyes that rolled back in their heads, with real human hair, with strange expressions that suggest they might have mayhem on their doll minds.

The History Center of Olmsted County in Rochester has dug through its vault and brought out its creepiest vintage dolls in time for Halloween. The museum is seeking votes for the creepiest doll and will display the top three vote-getters in the museum after Halloween.

"Some of them haven't seen the light of day for more than 50 years," said Dan Nowakowski, the museum's curator. "We're trying to get them out so people can see them the way they're meant to be seen."

The museum's oldest dolls go back as far as the 1850s. As the years progressed, the materials used to make the dolls changed, moving from china to leather and hard fabrics, to wax and plastic.

Many of the dolls once may have been beautiful, but decades of wear and tear have left them looking more like Leatherface in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Others, no doubt designed with the best of intentions, are just a bit disturbing.

"One of the things that freaks me out the most is human hair [on a doll] that's from a dead person," Nowakowski said. "I don't know why it creeps me out — it just does. That's the one I don't like to handle."

Voting for the creepiest doll ends Sunday.

John Reinan • 612-673-7402