Child’s Play (1988)

Directed by Tom Holland

Viewed on Vudu

 

Happy Spooktober everyone! This month we’re going to be focusing on movies from classic horror series that have somehow flown under my radar. I am so excited to start this month, there have been so many movies that I’ve been meaning to watch but never really got around to it. It will be awesome to just sit down and watch movies that are supposed to be good rather than sifting through the internet and trying to find those diamonds in the rough. I’ve been pretty open about my love for ‘80s horror in the past, so what better way to start off than with the first movie in the cult Chucky series, Child’s Play?

I don’t know very much about the Chucky series, but from seeing the ads and trailers for where the series would later go I assumed the first one was a straight up horror comedy, and it was great to find out that this isn’t the case at all. The series has an odd premise sure, which is that a serial killer ends up in a toy store while being pursued by a cop, and during this pursuit the killer has been shot several times and is on the verge of death, so he grabs a doll and starts chanting something and then the store is destroyed by a bolt of lightning. This isn’t a flashback or twist or anything, this is the opening scene. Then the movie cuts to a boy, Andy, haphazardly preparing breakfast on his birthday, with a TV advertising Good Guy dolls, the same kind of doll that the killer grabbed earlier, which Andy desperately wants. After his mom manages to find one for him, it isn’t quite as good of a guy as was advertised.

 

Okay, so I don’t think I really need to try and avoid spoilers here, right? Everyone knows the doll is a killer doll, right? If you didn’t, sorry.  It’s just one of those twists that has so permeated pop culture that I just assume everyone knows it now, especially if you have any interest in the horror genre. But let me back up a second, Chucky being a killer doll isn’t really a “twist” per se, it isn’t revealed at the end of the film as a way to shock the viewer. Chucky being alive is established at around the halfway mark in the movie. Before that, there were a lot of hints that this was the case, which brings me to my favorite thing about this movie, and that is the tone that it establishes and how it takes this weird plot and just plays it completely straight.

 

Sure, there are occasional jokes and things that could be considered humorous, but everything else takes the threat of Chucky very seriously, which is really what makes this movie so entertaining to watch. I wouldn’t call this a truly frightening horror movie, but more of a fun horror movie. It’s tense and out there and the consequences are real, but the situation is just bizarre and entertaining. In that same vein, it really helps how much the movie plays on both parental fears and childhood fears at the same time.

 

Andy’s mom, Karen, is a widowed single mom who is trying to provide for her son and shield him from all these weird things happening, and it is easy to empathize with her struggles, especially when it is obvious that her parenting is wordlessly called into question by the authorities. There’s a lot of real emotion there that carries her scenes. On the flip side, Child’s Play also presents Andy’s struggles to be heard very realistically.  The issue there is that after the first incident occurs, and Andy is the only person who was in the apartment with the victim, the police interview him and he starts talking about how Chucky is the one who was doing things and was talking and walking. No one believes him, of course, because that is a completely insane thing to even consider, and that is clever because I’m sure everyone reading this can remember when, as a kid, they tried to tell an adult something but were brushed off because they were a child and didn’t know what they were talking about. Both of these types of scenes form an unexpectedly powerful emotional core to this film.

 

I would also be loathe to not mention how incredibly well Child’s Play is paced. Not too slow or too fast, this movie just glides along perfectly, keeping you engaged without rushing any of its plot points. This brisk pace goes along well with the ‘fun horror’ bit I mentioned earlier, where it is slow enough to establish everything that needs to be established while also moving quickly once everything is prepared.

 

Everyone’s performances are pretty standard for this type of movie but Catherine Hicks has a couple of scenes that let her flex her acting muscles a bit. Particularly great is the scene where she realizes that Chucky is alive, her reaction is so genuine and real. And for the rest of the film, Karen’s quest to stop Chucky and save her son has her become more and more manic and desperate, which Hicks portrays perfectly believably. Alex Vincent, Andy, is, uh….he’s okay. Standards for child actors in the late ‘80s weren’t terribly high, but Vincent isn’t bad. Scene to scene, he never really stands out, but there are a couple of sequences where he is a bit more polished. The cop is pretty one note though, not bad but not too great, he just gets a bit overshadowed.

 

All of this adds up to a fun horror flick that has stood the test of time. This isn’t super scary and isn’t the best slasher of the ‘80s, but the premise is fun and creative and the solid lead performance helps emotionally connect the audience to the plot. This was a really pleasant surprise and I am looking forward to checking out the later movies in the series. Definitely recommend, especially around Halloween!