I’m having a Deep Thought(tm). Bear with me.

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 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.

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).

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.

*This is why Cloverfield was so unrealistic. If an actual kaiju showed up in New York everybody would go, “Pfft. I’ve seen bigger” and then studiously ignore it.