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StickySweater
Feb 7, 2008
Child's Play (Horror, 1988) IMDB Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes
Directed, Produced and Written By (Respectively): Tom Holland, David Kirschner, Don Mancini
Starring: Alex Vincent, Brad Dourif, Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon
Watch the Trailer



You've probably heard of Child's Play or one of it's later incantations. Perhaps you'd know it better if the series were simply referred to as "the Chucky" films. I've never been a fan of horror movies that attempt to substitute plot, acting or any piece of quality filmmaking by adding in a little bit of humor, especially when the humor is bad, as it often is. This describes the more recent entries in the series, but the original trilogy was much more focused on the horror aspects with humor being injected sparingly with a few one liners. The actor's inflection when delivering a great line could go a long way to save an otherwise mediocre movie.

Broadly speaking, the series is effective because it evokes a fear we often don't think about. The idea of a knee or thigh height entity bent on murder is scary largely because it isn't something that can easily be defeated (unless of course you've got shredder style shin pads or something). I've never been afraid of my toys myself, but clearly it's something that effects a lot of children. Take Spielberg's Poltergeist for example. Who wasn't afraid of that toy clown?

This film is definitely the best in the series for a number of reasons. The voice work from Brad Dourif's Chucky (who oddly enough plays serial killers in both Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Voyager) is really great at some points. He fills in that character's otherwise fairly straight forward motive with a great amount of passion. His first full reveal to the other characters and the audience is especially effective. Alex Vincent, the child actor, does a great job himself. He's certainly one of the best child actor's I've seen. Consider his pleads with the Detective and other cops torward the beginning of the movie or when he commands Chucky to speak.

The special effects primarily use animatronics to make Chucky's movements. Occasionally a "little person" or someone who has Dwarfism would stand in for the doll in a slightly oversized set to give the appearance of the doll moving. It's very effective and virtually never takes you out of the movie, even by today's bizarre standards. In addition, the movie isn't too long and is well edited.

As I understand it, they're planning a new film which will serve as a remake and a return to the horror roots. It too plans to feature animatronics rather than CGI like you might expect and the original writers are involved as well (more here). I'm not all that interested, but I'll give it a chance depending on how it reviews. That said, I don't expect it to live up to this version.

Child's Play is what I like to call "adventure horror," where the monster goes around killing people while the rest of the cast slowly catches on to what's really happening. Eventually, a trap is set or a final showdown is the result. Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and even Evil Dead all have these elements and I think they're great for it. Certainly, if you like that about old horror movies, you'll enjoy this. The only downside is that even though it does manage to avoid cliches, the film does feel a bit "80s" despite some really effective set pieces. I give it a very strong 3/5.

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Coffey
Sep 9, 2003

by T. Finn
Child's Play is one of my favorite horror movies and I still take flak from my friends to this day over it. In the late 80's, when my family finally got a VCR, Child's Play and Batman were the first two movies that we ever rented. Child's Play was the first movie that I ever watched on VHS!

My friends have a very Dee Snider line of thinking when it comes to the movie. "Just stomp him, it's over!" Aren't almost all movies about the suspension of disbelief though? And when I first watched it, I was like ten years old, not a pessimistic thirty-year-old man thinking "doll :smug:" Besides, when is is not fun to see the mother from 7th Heaven running around trying to fight an evil doll while getting called a stupid bitch and a filthy slut?

Child's Play was also one of the first DVD's that I ever bought when I finally purchased a DVD player. Now it is more because of nostalgia than anything but I still enjoy it.

4/5

"His real name is Charles Lee Ray."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHjirb_CCak

Coffey fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Aug 31, 2009

Medullah
Aug 14, 2003

FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS
When this movie came out, I was probably a bit too young to see it. It was when the internet didn't exist, so you didn't know every detail of a movie before it came out.

I knew the movie was about a killer doll, and I was pretty creeped out by it while watching it. But I was TERRIFIED for the first time in my life by a movie when Chucky showed his true self for the first time. It's still one of my favorite scenese...when he goes from the lifeless doll to the sneer and screams "YOU....BITCH!!!" I jumped out of my skin.

The movie wasn't too over the top...too bad the series went the pure comedy route later on, but I don't think it could have re-captured the feeling I got from the first one.

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