Not your ordinary baby doll (Alfred Muller/Flickr)

Let’s face it; disfigured dolls are creepy.

Welcome to La Isla de las Munecas (translation, the Island of the Dolls), home of zombie dolls. The “island” is located in the canals of Xochimilco, outside of Mexico City. Here’s its appropriately bizarre backstory (via writer David Lida):

A man named Don Julian, who died in 2005 at age 86, came to live here after all of his family members died. One day, he heard the cries of a woman who was drowning in the canal. He was able to pull her from the water, but unfortunately she didn’t survive. After that, Don Julian began to hear her voice. To ward off her spirit, he collected dolls dredged from the canals and hung them from wires around his property. Soon, people who heard his story began to bring him their disfigured dolls, as well. You’ll find more than 1,000 dolls on the property, according to Lonely Planet.

These dolls aren’t your ordinary Barbies-with-their-heads-ripped-off. Because many of them were fished from the canals, they’re coated with dirt and muck. Spiders have built webs in their empty eye sockets. Flies land on their cheeks. Their doll hair is missing or discolored. Many of them don’t have legs, heads or arms. And the fact that they’re hung from trees and rafters makes them look as if they all decided to commit suicide. It’s unsettling.

If you’re into unsettling experiences, however, you’re welcome to visit the island. You can reach the Island of the Dolls via one of the colorful trajinera boats that cruise the canals of Xochimilco, which is a Unesco World Heritage site. Ecological tours of the area take off from the Ecological Park of Xochimilco. Before you reach the zombie doll island, you’ll see other lovely islands filled with the flowers that are farmed there. In fact, Xochimilco means “Place Where Flowers Grow,” which has nothing to do with creepy dolls.

See how the dolls are hung from wire around the property? (Alfred Muller/Flickr)

And here's a lone leg. (Alfred Muller/Flickr)

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[Thanks to Alfred Muller for letting me use his photos from Flickr!]