Child's Play (1988)

Child's Play is one of those films that scared me as child even though I didn't get around to seeing it until a few weeks ago. The trailers were enough, and I have a vague memory of watching a piece about it on a TV news program where they were debating the appropriateness of a horror movie about a children's toy. I also have memories of an episode of the Twilight Zone or something about a ventriloquist dummy that comes to life, terrified me. So as a child I took the conceit of Child's Play pretty straight, it was a movie about a possessed doll and it must be terrifying. Overtime I came to realize that there was a definite tongue-in-check element to the very premise, and that element would only grow over subsequent installments on what came to be a fairly prolific franchise, iconic enough to have been recently rebooted.

The film does, a bit to my surprise, play things fairly straight, though more so towards the beginning. Brad Dourif plays Charles Lee Ray, a serial killer who with the police closing in as he hides in a toy store uses a voodoo spell (and the voodoo priest who taught that to him will come to regret it before the end of the film) meant to cast his sole into another body, but with no living body's conveniently available he takes a chance transferring his living essence into a 'Nice Guy Doll', which is kind of a riff on "My Buddy" a popular children's toy back in the 80's. Said possessed doll ends up gifted by widowed mom Karen (Catherine Hicks, Doctor Taylor from Star Trek 4) to her six year old son Andy (Alex Vincent, who is a better actor then this part really requires, which was nice). Andy and the doll, whose name is Chucky, spend a lot of time together, Andy claims he is alive and talks to him, but mom just thinks he's pretending. Well he isn't. A series of weird things happen, including the tragic "accidental" death of Andy's babysitter. A police detective played by Chris Sarandon becomes involved and by the end of the movie four or so people left alive are aware of what Chucky really was, though the evil appears to be defeated the movie was too successful and writers would find ways of bringing him back.

This movie is rather better then I would have expected it to be. The acting is surprisingly good, the direction by veteran horror man Tom Holland is strong. The effects work, you get about half way through the film before you really see Chucky walk about and talk, its mostly hinted at before that point and I think it really works for the movie to slowly build to the revel. There are few moments of fairly legitimate peril, though the denouncement drags on too long. Kinda impressive, though like with A Nightmare on Elm Street I'm pretty confident it will be all down hill from here, quality wise with  this franchise. ***