Animatronics

In Blumhouse’s Imaginary, coming out this week, a tattered old teddy bear hiding a spooky secret befriends a little girl. Things soon escalate from innocent to terrifying because let’s be real: a possessed toy is a scary as hell concept. This childhood nightmare is fueled by movies like Chucky from Child’s Play (a…Read more... In Blumhouse’s Imaginary, coming out this week, a tattered old teddy bear hiding a spooky secret befriends a little girl. Things soon escalate from innocent to terrifying because let’s be real: a…

Since the company’s earliest days as an MIT spinoff, Boston Dynamics’ systems have always provided entertainment value. It’s something the Hyundai-owned firm has long embraced by releasing dozens of wildly viral videos over the decades. With a few exceptions, however, entertainment was more of side benefit than the ultimate goal. That, however, will be changing in the near future, as the firm just announced a deal with Singapore-based entertainment brand, Neon. Want the top robotics news in your inbox each week?…

Science fiction promises us all sorts of sentient automatons once artificial intelligence becomes a part of our daily lives—not hockey puck-sized speakers. Determined to breathe more life into Amazon’s smart assistant, Thomas Burns hacked together a CRT TV and a pair of moving eyes to make Alexa feel more engaging—or look more like an eighth-grade science project, depending on how you look at it.Uh Oh, Amazon Bought Your Favorite Robot CompanyAlthough most devices with built-in smart assistants provide some kind of visual…

Stranger things have happened, but this one conspiracy theory might actually be true. Alex Goldman, the former host of the once-heralded, now-defunct podcast Reply All, may have just cracked the code on whether Disney replaced the skin of a Hillary Clinton robot with that of Donald Trump.Goldman explored the conspiracy theory on his Substack after his tweet on the matter went proper viral just a few weeks ago. The story goes that as Disney prepared The Hall of Presidents in Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World just before…

Your nightmares have new stars courtesy of Five Nights at Freddy’s.Image: UniversalThink Chucky E. Cheese meets Child’s Play. Those are the vibes blasting through the first trailer for Five Nights at Freddy’s, Blumhouse’s big screen adaptation of the popular video game franchise. It opens in theaters, and on Peacock, October 27.Favorite Vampires in Media | Jacob Anderson & Sam Reid In the film, Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games) plays a new nighttime security guard at a rundown old family restaurant called Freddy…

Get ready to deal with things that go clank in the night on the big screen. A movie is on the way later this year, and Universal Pictures has revealed the first teaser for the . The clip doesn't seem to hold too many surprises for those who are familiar with the jump scare-laden FNaF games, but it captures the aesthetic well enough. It focuses on a character played by Josh Hutcherson as he starts a new gig as a night-time security guard at a family entertainment center. However, the animatronics at Freddy Fazbear's pose…

This is truly wild. In our year 2023, we’re finally hitting robotics at theme parks with the knowledge of how to get back up if knocked down, which is totally a good idea. Totally.During The Art & Science of Disney Parks Storytelling at SXSW today, parks chairman Josh D’Amaro along with Disney Imagineers introduced a prototype robot being developed by the company, a small rabbit with rollerblades that looks like Judy Hopps from Zootopia if she were real and also a Terminator. It tracks,as the next evolution of…

Screenshot: Blumhouse/UniversalM3gan, th3 surpris3 hit of—ahem, sorry. Let me start over. M3gan, the surprise hit of 2022, has long been said to have had a more adult director’s cut than its PG-13 theatrical release entailed. Now, not only do we have confirmation it exists, but it’s coming your way as an extra feature (literally, in this case!) on M3gan’s hom3 vid3o r3l—god, sorry—on M3gan’s home video release.The unrated cut, which screenwriter Akela Cooper assures features M3gan achieving a much higher body count than…

NEW FOR 2022 Home Depot 12ft Hovering Witch Life Size Animatronic Halloween Prop‘Tis the season to go big or go home with your yard decor, and The Home Depot is delivering another towering terror with an animated witch who appears to be floating 12-feet above the ground. In reality,she’s held up there by the supporting broom in her hand, but the effect is convincing, and made even more terrifying with animated LCD eyes, LED lights illuminating her face, and a moving jaw synced to several different spoken scripts. The…

Halloween is just around the corner, which means it's time to decorate. Ditch your run-of-the-mill paper decorations and invest in some animatronics to make your house the spookiest on the block.You make ask, what are animatronics? They are lifelike robots created solely for entertainment, and are often used in movies for special effects. You can level up your holiday decor with animatronics, creating a fun, festive, and in this case, scary scene. The Halloween animatronics below can make your home seem deeply haunted or…