Child’s Play (1988) Directed by Tom Holland
Chucky, the king of all evil killer dolls, in the king of all evil killer doll movies, Child’s Play. I remember at a very young age, somehow I knew about this movie, and I REALLY wanted to watch it. Being like 5 or 6 my dad told me no, probably like a hundred times. Since I was a hyper active annoying little kid, he probably gave in just to get me to shut up. I watched the whole movie, enjoyed it and then had nightmares for probably 2 years afterwards, thanks dad! I recently bought the bluray of Child’s Play at Walmart as a part of their special editions for only $6.50, check those out they’re pretty awesome! I watched this the other night, because my wife has NEVER seen it, how that is possible I have no clue.
Child’s Play starts of with a tense chase scene. Charles Lee Ray, the Lakeshore Strangler is being chases by detective Mike Norris. Running down a street, sharing gunshots Ray and Norris nearly escape each other’s bullets when Ray is finally shot in the leg. Ray’s getaway van takes off, abandoning him. In a last ditch effort; Ray breaks into a toy store. Norris follows him in and Ray summons the power of a dark lord saying a passage in Latin whilst holding a my buddy rip-off doll called a Good Guy. The doll makes me laugh because it has the same haircut my brother had at the age of 3 or 4. A bolt of lightning bursts through the window, Ray dies and Norris is blown backwards.
Now to a small boy making breakfast for his mother while watching the Good Guys cartoon. I find it pretty cool that they made a cartoon solely for this horror movie, that’s dedication. We find out it is the little boy’s birthday his name is Andy. The mother gives him his gifts and he’s super excited thinking he’s getting a new Good Guy doll, but he instead gets clothes and a Good Guy play-set. Being a single widowed mother, Mrs. Barclay explains that she didn’t have enough money to buy her son a Good Guy doll. Later that day Mrs. Barclay’s friend Maggie explains that there is a peddler in the alley selling a Good Guy doll. Mrs. Barclay goes down and buys the doll for like $40, thus saving $60 in the process. Of course the doll is the doll Charles Lee Ray was holding when he died. She goes home that night and gives Andy the doll, and of course he goes nuts, almost to the point of the Nintendo 64 kid from youtube fame. He speaks to the doll and the doll tells him his name is Chucky.
That night, Maggie must watch Andy because Mrs. Barclay has to work, thanks to her doucher boss. Maggie overhears a news story that night about Eddie Caputo, the getaway driver that abandoned Ray the night of the accident. Maggie puts Andy and Chucky to sleep. She turns the tv off and starts eating cake. Suddenly the tv turns back on and Chucky is seated in front of it. She yells at Andy thinking he is playing a trick instead of going to bed. Andy explains Chucky did it, of course Maggie doesn’t believe him. She puts the doll back in bed with him and goes back to the kitchen. Then we see a small hand grab a hammer, and run off. Maggie is started by the sound, and checks behind a potted plant, only to find nothing. She then turns around and gets a hammer to the eye, stumbling backwards and through the kitchen window, crashing onto a car below. Mrs. Barclay returns to find her friend dead and her son explaining that Chucky is alive and killed Maggie. Again no one believes him, I mean it is a doll, so it is kind of understood.
The next day Andy skips school and with the guidance of Chucky, he goes to the house of Eddie Caputo. Andy walks off to rock a piss and Chucky goes into the house and blows it up, killing Caputo. Mrs. Barclay is called to the police station to find Andy. Andy tells the police that Chucky killed Caputo, gain they think the little guy is nuts. Andy is held at a psych ward for children or something for a couple days. Mrs. Barclay goes home and starts yelling at the doll. She walks over to the box to throw it out and notices the batteries fell to the floor. Realizing the doll has been working without the batteries she grabs Chucky, pulls up his shirt and opens the battery compartment, suddenly the head whips around and says “I’m Chucky wanna play?!” She drops the doll and then slowly walks towards it. She picks it back up and demands that he talks, the doll refuses by staying silent. She then threatens to throw him into the fireplace, when Chucky comes to life and calls her a bitch, he tries to strangle her, bites her and she throws him down. Chucky runs out the door and she chases after him but he escapes. This scene is the best part of movie, it is terrifying when she realizes the batteries aren’t even in the doll.
Mrs. Barclay goes on the search for the peddler that sold her the doll, she finds him and he attempts to rape her, when Norris shows up and fights him off. She explains that the doll is a vessel for the soul of Charles Lee Ray, he basically tells her she’s nuts and he leaves. Later in the night Norris decides to check things out and gets attacked by Chucky, he crashes his car and shoots Chucky. Chucky then disappears. He runs off to Dr. John, a witch doctor and asks why the gunshot hurt so much and bled, seeing that he’s suppose to be immortal. John explains that when he put his soul into the doll, the doll will slowly become human until he puts his soul into the first person he revealed his identity to, Andy. Chucky uses a voodoo doll to kill John in an odd scene. Norris and Mrs. Barclay find John barely alive and he explains what Chucky is trying to do and that you can kill him by shooting the heart. Chucky shows up at the psych ward and Andy tries to escape. Chucky kills a doctor by using an electric shock therapy headset and fries him. Andy escapes and runs home. How he makes it home I don’t know, he’s like 6, I couldn’t find my way home at that age. Chucky follows him and knocks him out. Chucky then tries to put his soul into Andy when Norris and Mrs. Barclay arrive and ward him off.
They fight off Chucky for a bit when Chucky stabs Norris in the leg and runs off. Mrs. Barclay with the help of Andy, throws Chucky into the fireplace and set him ablaze. The doll collapses to the ground and seemingly dies. Suddenly they cut to where Chucky was lying, and find that the doll has escaped. Mrs. Barclay goes to check on Norris and Andy runs to get a first aid pack. Andy goes down the hallway and is tripped by Chucky, who is a melted charred mess. He craws backwards while Chucky comes at him with a knife (a common scene in my childhood nightmares). Andy and Mrs. Barclay take shelter in the bathroom and Chucky stabs through the door almost stabbing Mrs. Barclay. They run off and then shoot Chucky, blowing his arm and leg off. The doll keeps movie towards them even when the head is sent flying across the house. Finally the doll collapses and Norris’s partner shows up, not believing the doll story. Out of nowhere Chucky’s body grabs the partner by the throat and chokes him. He throws the body off him and they shoot him through the heart, killing the doll for good.
This movie seems to get a polarizing mix of reviews. Either people think it is the greatest movie ever or they write it off as being a stupid killer doll movie. I think the movie is pretty awesome, I mean its not amazing nor is it awful. The acting is pretty good for a movie like this, even Alex Vincent, the little boy that plays Andy is genuine. The special effects used on the doll are amazing. It is very believable that the doll is in fact a live and moving on its own. See practical effects again! CGI couldn’t come close to the realness of a well moved puppet! I always laugh watching this now, thinking about how young I was when I first saw this. There are quite a few F Bombs, but I’m pretty sure my dad taped it off TV for me, so it was probably edited. The movie has some creepy scenes still, like I mentioned earlier about the batteries and when Andy is crawling backwards with burnt Chucky coming towards him. I would give this movie an A, it holds so much nostalgia for me and I love when Chucky is serious and threatening, which was lost in Bride of and Seed of Chucky. The latter of those two movies being just a dumpster fire. If you haven’t seen this movie before, like my wife until the other night, you should watch it. The movie is intense and it has the awesome thing that great movies do, they don’t show the monster/killer until later in the movie much like A Nightmare on Elm Street.
