Have you ever locked eyes with a porcelain doll on a shelf and instantly felt a chill crawl up your spine? If so, you’re not alone — and horror icon Stephen King would probably agree with you. Dolls have long been the stuff of nightmares in King’s world, from murderous clowns to animated Army men with a vendetta.

King’s fear of dolls is well-documented across his work. In “Poltergeist,” which he helped write for the screen, a young boy’s fear of a clown doll turns disturbingly real when the toy attacks. In “The X-Files,” King penned an episode centered around a haunted doll, and one of the darkest vignettes in his “Nightmares and Dreamscapes” series features actor William Hurt being hunted by vindictive toys — tiny green Army men that eventually bring about his demise.