SOURCES: Burn, Witch, Burn by A. Merritt (1933)

DESCRIPTION: “Every cabinet was open. Dolls stood within them, row upon row, staring down at us with eyes green and blue, gray and black, lifelike as though they were midgets on exhibition in some grotesque peepshow. There must have been hundreds of them. Some were dressed as we in America dress; some as the Germans do; some as the Spanish, the French, the English; others were in costumes I did not recognize. A ballerina, and a blacksmith with his hammer raised...a French chevalier, and a German student, broadsword in hand, livid scars upon his face...an Apache with knife in hand, drug-madness on his yellow face and next to him a vicious-mouthed woman of the streets and next to her a jockey...” (Burn, Witch, Burn by A. Merritt)

NOTES: Killer dolls are actually people who have been transformed by a witch. They are under her control and are sent out to kill armed with knives or pins.

HISTORY: Merritt's novel is intriguing for it is one of the first to use the structure of modern horror novels (ala Stephen King). Todd Browning filmed Lionel Barrymore as an evil witch in Devil Doll (1936), based on the A. Merritt novel, Burn, Witch, Burn (1933).