Hi, I am Chucky, want to play?

CHILD'S PLAY (1988)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(originally viewed in 1988, not reviewed till 1998, hence all the postmodernist horror comments)

Let's begin by saying that I am heartily sick and tired of post-modern, cleverly designed horror/slasher flicks which try to comment on the whole slasher genre, only to end up becoming what it is that they are pretending to satirize. The year 1998 had the following in store: "Urban Legend," "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer," "Halloween H20," and "Bride of Chucky." The latter has the same degree of self-awareness, considering there's one shot of someone watching a clip from "The Bride of Frankenstein."

"Child's Play" is one of the better horror films that was released around the time of "Halloween 4" and "Monkey Shines." It unfolds at a quick pace with some tense, scary scenes. No one really needs a description of what this film's story is about - a killer practices some voodoo magic and his soul enters the Chucky doll (a toy every kid desires). The best scene is when the mother (Catherine Hicks) picks up the package that the doll came in, and the batteries fall on the floor! Oops! How can the doll speak without batteries? When she threatens to throw the doll into the fireplace, the doll's face contorts into the angry, evil Charles and emits some Exorcist-like obscenities: "You filthy slut!", and so on, and so forth.

"Child's Play," however, has some unbelievable moments that hinder the tension towards the end. For example, the suave cop (Chris Sarandon) who shot Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) disbelieves the kids stories about the doll speaking and giving orders, and he disbelieves the mother after she's obviously been attacked (she's bitten on the arm). Then the cop is attacked by Chucky and, curiously, when he sees the kids' mother afterwards, he doesn't even tell her that he was attacked! Why not? That's hard to swallow, and it is unlikely that such a doll would travel through the cold city of Chicago unnoticed, but that's a trivial complaint. The ending, as effective as it is, is a cross between "Terminator" and "Halloween" where the killer just keeps rising back from supposed death. They could have easily blown the doll to kingdom come, so you can see why it was stupid to make two inferior sequels about the same damn Chucky doll.

"Child's Play" is done the old-fashioned way (even for an 80's horror movie) by not including a high body count or any needless gore - the movie builds its suspense with thrills and chills thanks to the able hand of director Tom Holland (who helmed one of my favorite upbeat horror comedies, the original "Fright Night"). The performances are decent (including Alex Vincent who appeared in the next two installments) and, most importantly, we care about the characters' plight. Although it doesn't come close to the unrelenting terror of the voodoo doll episode in "Trilogy of Terror," "Child's Play" is still better than most recent horror slasher flicks. Oh yeah, and there are no clever post-modernist jokes.