Nevin Martell
Even on the brightest days, a dark pall hangs over La Isla de las Muñecas, the Island of the Dolls. The name sounds cutesy and sweet, but the reality couldn’t be more different.
Tucked away deep in the lush canal system of Xochimilco on the southern outskirts of Mexico City, accessible only by colorful flat bottomed gondola-style trajineras, the small island is dotted with a few trees and a handful of ramshackle huts with clothes lines crisscrossing the air. Everywhere you look there are approximately 1,500 dolls, exposed to the elements without protection or maintenance, each one more horrifying than the next.
The haunting collection of toy orphans are dirty, decomposing, and misshapen with heat blistered skin, bulging stomachs, missing eyes, ripped off appendages, and ragged hair. Walking amongst them makes you feel like you’re experiencing a waking nightmare in which they reanimate, like infantile zombies, to devour you with their grimy plastic mouths. If they ever make another Child’s Play movie, they should film it on the Island of the Dolls.