I’m having a Deep Thought(tm). Bear with me.<\/p>\n
A friend pointed me to this video of a prank involving an animatronic “demonic” baby, scooting around in a remote-controlled carriage and startling people. My initial thoughts were: A) That is a remarkably<\/em> realistic-looking baby, and B) I hope they’ve got lawyers on hand for when a kindly little old lady goes over to coo at the baby and has a massive heart attack.<\/p>\n
The next thing that struck me, though, was this: After the initial startle most people just go, “Huh” and keep walking. It seems as though encountering a carriage moving of its own volition and then having a clearly-possessed baby pop up out of it should have more of an impact. Nobody calls the police or even looks around for a priest. It could be that the animatronic doesn’t look as realistic in real life. It could be that this takes place in New York, where they pride themselves on refusing to impressed.* It may also have something to do with the location: Being surrounded by crowds of people might lessen the perceived threat (and also might explain why nobody calls the authorities; they all expect some other bystander will do it).<\/p>\n
Regardless of the cause it’s an interesting reaction, and it sort of calls into question the way that crowds react to monsters in horror movies. In the movies, a demonic baby tooling around in a self-propelled carriage would cause widespread panic; in reality it seems that it causes more of a collective shrug. It’s possible that when zombies invade or a doorway to Hell opens up nobody will even notice.<\/p>\n