I think it's a combination of video games and fake corporate videos from movies. This seems like something that would be playing on a TV in a near-future sci-fi movie. Something out of RoboCop or those cut bits of Terminator 2 with the guy who invented the things. Hell, short-circuit for a more lighthearted take on it. We've been bombarded with these sorts of videos being a precursor to bloodshed since at least the 80s.
Maybe the protagonists of a movie are in a research lab that's mysteriously gone silent, everyone seemingly having disappeared without a trace, and they watch this video, trying to figure out what's gone wrong. They flip through a couple more before finding the one where these things start killing everyone. Other 'bots drag off the bodies, and cleaning robots spin across the floor, wiping up the blood. While the characters' eyes are glued to the screen, the viewer sees the "dead" half-disassembled dog-robot on the workbench behind them start to silently shift, then slowly stand up.
You might be confusing the chicken for the egg. ;)
I think the reason robots are so scary in movies is because they inherently are scary. Sharks are scary in movies because they are inherently scary.
I am convinced that robots hold the potential to completely devastate our collective ways of life, due to violence programmed into them, or due to their disruptions of job markets, or perhaps even due to them coming under cotrol of some future AI-type construct. These scenarios are not ludicrous to contemplate, they are, in fact, quite possible, the first two even likely. That's scary stuff, never mind Ally Sheedy's career-destroying performance in Short Circuit...
But for a long time, it'll be pretty easy to fool programmed machines. They'll be suckers for any kind of fakeout, being poor judges of human behavior.
Maybe the protagonists of a movie are in a research lab that's mysteriously gone silent, everyone seemingly having disappeared without a trace, and they watch this video, trying to figure out what's gone wrong. They flip through a couple more before finding the one where these things start killing everyone. Other 'bots drag off the bodies, and cleaning robots spin across the floor, wiping up the blood. While the characters' eyes are glued to the screen, the viewer sees the "dead" half-disassembled dog-robot on the workbench behind them start to silently shift, then slowly stand up.
See:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ApocalypticLog