Child's Play (1988)


The film that brought us the red-headed Good Guy doll possessed by the sadistic, psychopathic serial killer, Charles Lee Ray, played by Brad Dourif. Still going as of 2021, with a series titled Chucky for SYFY, involving Don Mancini, the creative driving force since 1988. Don Mancini's presence in In Search of Darkness II actually inspired me to revisit the Chucky series, with my daughter badly wanting to watch them with me. This is the only uncut version of the film, though, we watched. I have never had a special edition of the films, so it was just the ole DVD release I picked up from Best Buy during an October sale.






 This revisit was a good one. Except that one scene where Chucky visits a voodoo practitioner who taught him the use of "soul/body swap", breaking the poor guy's limbs by twisting on a voodoo doll, then stabbing the doll in the heart, killing that guy. The guy who told Chucky that he perverted the religion taught to him, corrupting the magic, doesn't fare well at all. 

And the end really had me howling with laughter, if I'm honest. The way a burnt-to-a-crisp Chuck just keeps coming looks ridiculous but damn its really effective in terms of how creepy the doll is when its all ashy and practically obliterated. I mean, a one-arm Chuck, without his head, legs, and an arm -- all shot off by Catherine Hicks' confiscated gun while Chris Sarandon remains injured from shots by a bat and knife slice to the ankle -- still coming at his adversaries despite no longer have a head attached, with its sole hand barely operational but still wanting to choke a cop had me equal parts laughing and almost applauding the audacity of the direction and writing. 

Sarandon listening to a dead serious Hicks explaining to him that Chucky is alive, blowing it off as unreasonable and ludicrous...even as Chucky is on his rampage, the viewer has to suspend their disbelief and go with it. It is so easy to identify with Sarandon until he's also fending off Chuck in his car, with those knife jabs popping up his seat, nearly stabbing him, with the damn doll pressing on the accelerator until there is this serious overturn crash. 

That scene where Chuck has remained rather docile until Hicks keeps yelling at him to talk, threatening to toss him into her lit fireplace, and the doll comes alive, cursing at her then biting her; this is awesome. I thought that moment when Hicks has the Good Guy box and the batteries drop the floor was brilliant...I was like, Bravo! 

And Tom Holland really captured Chicago 1988 as others were of New York or LA in the 80s...Hicks willingly walking the streets of Chicago for that bum who sold her the Chucky doll where the vagrants congregate, nearly about to be raped before Sarandon arrives to scare them off like a light scattering roaches is damned effective. Also a scene that mortified me as a father is when Andy (Alex Vincent) leaves his school with Chucky, traveling by subway to a flophouse with rodents, broken windows, disheveled rooms, piles of dishes and trash so Charles could get even with Eddie, his criminal partner who left him to be shot by Sarandon during a chase. That house going KABOOM!!! with Alex so close looking for his doll after Chucky turns on the stove gas and Eddie fires his gun, not to mention, the kid just moving through Chicago without a care in the world; I told my daughter that this is nightmare fuel to me as a dad. 

Anyway, there is another scene that really landed with a punch: poor Andy has been taken by doctors (including Jack Colvin) and left in a locked room -- essentially a cell -- because he's believed to have been involved in the deaths of Hicks' friend and co-worker (played by a very good Dinah Manoff (of "Empty Nest" fame) and Eddie. Andy looks out his cell window and sees Chucky walking up a set of stairs. Andy pleas with Colvin's Dr. Ardmore to help him, just collapsing to the floor up against the door crying. That really just socked me right in the feels. I think that is the father in me just reacting naturally to something that hits hard. That kid, to his credit, won't just play victim; Chucky does get the keys, opens the cell, and Andy is hiding under the bed. Andy leaves, grabs a scalpel, but that damned Dr. Ardmore interferes, eventually fried by an electric shock machine for the head thanks to a giggling Chucky, very proud of his fucking evil antics.

Holland really won't give us full bore Chucky, in all his active foul-mouthed Brad Dourif-voiced glory until the last 30 minutes. Holland's restrained, and I think the film seems to benefit from it, even though I prefer the next film because there is nothing holding back Chucky from quipping and killing. 4/5

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